


9:15; Wouldn't it be nice to live together

by IamParadoxic



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Ashen Romance | Auspistice, Blind Character, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Derse and Prospit, Embedded Images, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Fantrolls, Flamethrowers, Flashbacks, Flush Crush, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Furthest Ring (Homestuck), Gen, God Tier, Guns, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Light Angst, M/M, Meta Shenanigans, Mixed Media, Multi, Multiple Personalities, Muteness, Original Character Death(s), Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, POV Multiple, Pale Crush, Pale Polyamory (Homestuck), Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Panic Attacks, Polyamory, SBURB Fan Session, SGRUB Fan Session, Shenanigans, Shotgun, Skaia, Swearing, Temporal Paradox, Temporary Character Death, The Horrorterrors (Homestuck), Time Loop, Time Shenanigans, Time Skips, Time Travel, Troll Romance (Homestuck), no beta we die like idiots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-01-08 04:27:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 36,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21229790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IamParadoxic/pseuds/IamParadoxic
Summary: What is it with the universe ending because a group of kids go and play a game together. And why is it that it's always the duty of those kids that are playing the game to create a new universe. And why can't the creation of the new universe be easy.More importantly, why can't this game ever be kind to those that play it?Just a story about fantrolls of mine playing sburb, and their experiences throughout playing it. Probably not actually going to be as dramatic, and angsty as the summary might be suggesting.The mixed media, aka the embedded images, aspect of the tags, only apply to chapters 15 and beyond





	1. The Beginning of the End

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, this is my attempt at writing a long multi-chapter fic that will last for a while and i will hopefully be able to bring to a finish.

A young troll stands in his room, though it is not his birthday, today is a very special day for this young troll. As today is the day that he and several of his friends, as well as some other trolls that he is acquainted with due to them having the same friends, are going to play a game together, a game that once they had learned the existence of, had the urge to play it together.

But the relationship between this troll and others isn’t important at this moment in time, what is important is the name of this young troll.

>What is his name?

>Tired Nerd;

No, that won’t due, as this troll is far past 6 sweeps old and has thus already has his name, and it wouldn’t make much sense for someone else to decide the name of someone else who already has one. No, we must make do with the name that he already has, and what is that name?

>Talbot Mukuro;

Indeed

Your name is Talbot Mukuro, and you are almost 9 sweeps old.

You are currently waiting for the others to signal that they have gotten the game which you all are going to go and play together, as you already have the files all downloaded, you are just waiting on them as you had promised one of your moirails that you wouldn’t start until everyone else is ready. And since you are waiting, you might as well mention your interests which include TROLL WATCHING, READING, and SCREAMING INTO THE UNFORGIVING VOID.

You are in your hive which has been constructed around a TREE with many branches that your lusus enjoys nesting in. You have been described as someone that doesn’t understand the concept of self-care due to your POOR SLEEPING HABITS, which you personally think is ridiculous, as you sleep a good 12 HOURS A WEEK, and it not like you need more to function.

Your trolltag is categorizingTragedy and you write in a way that you believe doesn’t being much attention to yourself... as well as being efficient w/ your writing... of course you do have a habit of trailing off sometimes...

>Anyways, what will you do?

>Look around your room;

Might as well, as you have nothing better to do.

You take a look around your room. You have your recuperacoon set up in one of the corners of your room, set on the opposite side of the room on which you have your computer rig set up. Which consists of several monitors all hooked up together. Which you mainly use to have multiple windows open at once so you can do multiple things at the same time to use your time in what you would consider to be an efficient manner.

On your walls you have a few posters, two of which are for movies that while not the greatest, nostalgia goggles do put them in a better light and make them better than they probably were. Along with them, the rest of your posters are of eastern animations that you have enjoyed watching.

Next to your ‘coon is a bookshelf which contains a large number of books that you have read during the course of your life. Along with a collection of journals you written, containing various different information, such as your thoughts on different subjects, or your observations of the different trolls that you know. Of course, you have the contains of them memorized, but it doesn’t hurt to have them written down as a safety measure.

It seems like someone is trolling you right now, might as well answer it.

\-- anarchicTerror started trolling categorizingTragedy --

AT: hEy, you raedy for this paety to start? i Haerd that everyone else has this shit all downloaded and is ready to go and do this shit   
AT: sO, i Thoguht that i Would go and send you a memo invite sincw you don;t have evetyone on on your cHumprOll. aNd thus won’t realize that a memo has been created by one of the trolsl off of it   
ct: the reasoning for why i don’t have all of the troll we’ve playing with on my chumproll is that i barely interact w/ them at all… if ever... do why would i have kidsthem in there if i never talk to them... it would make note sense…   
AT: oBviously so i Could have a means of contacting them all and fro ease   
ct: ok, when you put it like that... it makes sense… fuck i’m too tired to argue about this... i’ll add them all to my list once we get started if that makes you feel better...   
AT: sPeaking of you being tierd, when was the last tiem you slept? dOn’t want you to drop in the middle of this   
ct: for your information... i have actually slept recently... i just woke up not to long ago...   
AT: aNd how long was this bout of sleep you calim to have recent;y expirenced   
ct: like 14 or so hours of sleep in fact... cause i knew that one of you were gonna make me sleep before playing...   
AT: wEll, hmmm. yOu are right about that, alright then let me gve you that memo link so we can get this paryt started   
ct: sweet...   
AT: fAke.link

\-- anarchicTerror stopped trolling categorizingTragedy --

Well since she was so nice to invite you to the memo, it would make much sense to join.

\-- categorizingTragedy responded to memo--

ct: yo... i heard yall had finished downloading this game... so is it time to get this whole thing started...   
Dm: 10 [Ah. Talbot. glad that you could make it here at a reasonable time.]   
CA: sSs OH GOODIE, THIS DOUCHEBAG IS HERE NOW, HOW WONDERFUL OF YOU TO GRACE US WITH YOUR PRESENCE sSs   
ct: oh spare me the sarcasm... i probably would have been here sooner if i know this memo had was a thing...   
AT: yEah he didn’t know this memo existed until i Sent him a link to her e   
sm: (] oh well. 7albot dear. i am sorry 7o say 7his. bu7 7his is 7he sor7 of wha7 you ge7 for no7 having everyone here on your chumproll [)   
gK: So basically this is what you get for being a douchebag   
ct: nice to see you too... i would ask where your better half is... but considering it is you online... i would guess she’s currently asleep...   
gK: Yeah you have a problem with that   
ct: no... why would i have a problem with her being asleep… she’s always asleep when you’re online... & you are the leading authority on whether she is asleep or not... so why would i question you on that matter...   
gK: >:[   
MM: @->-- LISTEN, IF YOU TWO ARE GOING TO START STARING SPADES AT EACH OTHER, THAN COULD YOU DO IT SOMEWHERE ELSE?   
gK: I am shocked and offended that you would imply that I would even have the slightest interest in him at all   
ct: oh... was that how it seemed... sorry about that... anyways... you two do resided in the same hive don’t you... & share the same computer right... so really... it doesn’t matter if she’s awake or not... considering you can set it all up for her...   
gK: >:/   
Aa: yoooo chiill yaall leets noot doo thiis shiit heeree oof aall plaacees siincee weeree aall geettiing toogeetheer too plaay aa gaamee   
Dm: 11 [Indeed. it would a shame if we had to delay due to any sort of conflict that might occur]   
sm: (] 7albot please. I believe i7 would be bes7 if you s7opped saying 7hings 7ha7 could po7en7ially se7 7hem off. Even if i7 en7irely unin7en7ional [)   
ct: i’ll make an attempt...   
AT: aNyways everyone here has the game files all downloaed which means we’re all ready to play. sO i Figure that prrhaps we could all open them up at the same time   
sm: (] oh my. wha7 a wonderful idea luv. i suppose someone mus7 do 7he coun7down for 7ha7 [)   
CA: sSs I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE sSs   
CA: sSs 5 sSs   
CA: sSs 4 sSs   
ct: :/   
CA: sSs 3 2 1 sSs  


Welp, since is how it seems to be going. Might as well go along with it, considering you're too tired to not.

Booting up the program you start to run it and receive a prompt to either run the client or server program. Figuring that you have nothing to lose you start up the server program. And a window popped up in response, "Searching for client player..." Soon afterwards a list of several names popped up, eight of them, but two of them were taking up the same line, you figure that's most likely because those two shared a computer.

ct: so... the prompt that showed up... did you all chose to run the client... right away...   
CA: sSs PERHAPS. I'M GETTING A MESSAGE THAT SAYS WAITING FOR SERVER PLAYER TO CONNECT sSs   
CA: sSs WHATEVER THE FUCK THAT MEANS sSs   
AT: oH, yeah same   
sm:(] oh dear. i believe i read some7hing abou7 7his while i was researching 7his game. 7here was murmurings 7ha7 7he players had 7o se7 up a sor7 of loop be7ween 7hem. so perhaps we each need 7 run each program 7o cons7ruc7 7his loop [)   
ct: in that case... since i'm the only one who's open up the server program at this moment... i get first choice it seems... caecam... i'm connecting to you...   
AT: oH tAlbot how forward of you. aLgawa might get jelious   
sm: (] caecam dear. can you no7 say 7hings like 7ha7. you're embarrassing me [)   
AT: i'M one of your moirails hon, i Would asy that it is part of my duty to do that, consdiering how much you and tAlvot od it to me. aLso i'Ll load up my server program and conncet to you so you don't feel left out   
CA: sSs CAN THE THREE OF YOU KEEP THIS SORT OF FILTH TO YOURSELVES. I THINK I CAN SPEAK FOR EVERYONE HERE WHEN I SAY WE DON'T TO SEE THIS FILTHY DISPLAY OF PDA sSs

Ignoring that whole exchange, you select Caecam out of the list of names to connect to her. And she is, you assume, opening her server program and connecting to Algaea. You notice that some of the named had become grayed out, seems like you won't be the first to connect then, seems like other just went for it while the exchange between your moirails was going on.

Once you had selected Caecam's name from the list, the window turned into a loading screen, and as soon as it was done loading, which wasn't that long, the image shown was a strange one. It appeared that you were viewing what you could only call Caecam's respiteblock with her currently on it

\-- categorizingTragedy started trolling anarchicTerror --

ct: so... i feel like i should mention to you that as soon as i had connected to you... that my program started to show... what i can tell from the times i've been to your hive... is your respiteblock...   
AT: sO wat your saiying is that youe a pepping tom now. cAn't a lady have soe privicy in her own hive   
ct: since when have you considered yourself a lady... whenever algaea has said had remarked that you weren't acting very lady like... you always responsed w/ that you weren't a lady so that it as fine...   
AT: cUreses foiled by my own words. bUt seriously are you actually lookng into my bedroom and seeing what i'M doing right at this moment   
ct: well... move around & i can check if that the cast...   
ct: you just got up from your computer & threw your arms in the air...   
ct: & now your flipping me off w/ both hands... how pleasant...   
AT: wEll, gusse that confrms it then. hOw weird, gusess that means taht i'Ve got aLgaea's place on my screen then   
ct: let me try & move my camera... yeah... that looks like her place... 

After you sent that message you notice that in the memo there was some interesting activity going on.

CA: sSs YO WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN THAT YOU CAN SEE ME IN MY HIVE PAIDII. AND ALSO WHY THE FUCK IS MY SCREEN SHOWING ME SOME HIVE THAT LOOKS LIKE SOME SORT OF HALF FROZEN WONDERLAND sSs   
Dm: 13 [That would be my hive you are looking at. I assume that you went and connected to me as my server player and as a result are being shown my hive. I am also assuming that Paagal had connected to you as your server player]   
CA: sSs AND HOW THE FUCK WOULD YOU KNOW THAT sSs   
Dm: 14 [Obviously based on my own recent experience as I have gone and connected to Ocyete as their server player. And my screen is showing what I am assuming to be their hive]   
ct: yep... based on what i've seen... you can see the hive... as well as the troll you are have connected your server program to... & it is live...   
AT: iNdeed, hwile i Might not be able to see you myself aLgaea, i Know that it's showing you to me   
sm: (] oh. deary me. i wasn'7 expec7ing company. so i apologize for 7he mess you are being shown [)   
ct: calm down... it isn't that bad...

While this exchange was going on. You heard a loud noise nearby, taking your plamhusk with you off to figure out the cause of the sound.

Exiting your room and heading towards where the sounds seem to have originated, you find several large machines placed on one of the balconies that were a part of your hive.

ct: so some strange machines have appeared... may i ask if anyone here is responsible for this...   
MM: @->-- THAT WAS ME. I APOLOGIZE FOR IF I STARTLED YOU, BUT THERE WAS IN A MENU I COULD INTERACT WITH AND PLACE. AND I FIGURE THAT THIS WOULD BE SOMETHING IMPORTANT.   
ct: hmm... that's fair.. if these are important might as well figure out what to do with them...

But before that you return to your respiteblock and place the same machines that had been placed in your hive, in the biggest clear area you could find in Caecam's hive for her to figure out, while you investigate the machines in your hive. While doing so you sent her a message telling her that your dropping some machines in her hive so be prepared for that.

Once you started to investigate the machines you notice that one of which had a wheel on it as well as a cap. Messing around with you feel like the cap was a bit loose, in order to get it off, you whip out your change and striked at it. The impact caused the cap to come off, and out of the device comes out a weird glowing ball that hurt to look at. Anyways since the cap was off now, you can probably turn the wheel of the device, and you once did so, a cylinder came out of the machine. A digital clock also seemed to come to life on the device once you had gotten the cylinder and has begun to countdown. Looking for what you were supposed to due with this thing you notice that one of the machines had a space that looked like the cylinder to be placed.

Placing it on there you notice a slot that looked like it needed something to be inserted into it. Looking around you find a card that looked like it would fit. Once you had inserted the card, the machine came to life, craving the cylinder into a new shape, and soon it had finished you took the resulting object and tried to figure out what it was that you were supposed to do with it.

Having only one machine remaining, you figure that this is what you're supposed to use this object with. Placing it on a spot that seemed like the obvious place to put it, the machine burst to life. Appearing to scan the carved cylinder that you placed, it soon makes an object appeared on the larger of the platforms.

At this moment, the orb that had appeared from the first machine starts to hover around you, as though trying to get your attention. Reacting to it's annoying behavior you retrieve a random object from your sylladex and throw it at the orb in an attempt to have to leave you alone.

Once you had done so, you turn your attention to this object, an olive colored book, lays there alone. Picking it up and flipping through it you find it to be empty. At a loss of what to do, you look around and notice, high above you. A meteor is falling from the sky and looks like it would be on a direct course towards you. Absentmindedly you notice that there is only about 10 seconds left on the countdown.

In a panic, you fumble with the book in your hands, relying on your instincts on how you would survive this. Without thinking you open the book and grasps the two halves of it in your hands, and in a single motion, tear the book in half. And with that a bright light envelopes your vision, the meteor crashes down, and the countdown hit zero.

>Change Character? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hopefully my pacing is good here, and i didn't just speed on by with everything that was going on.


	2. It's the end of the world as we know it; And I feel fine

>Change Character?

>Yes;

Your name is Caecam Mortis and you are just over 8 and a half sweeps old.

You are currently playing a game with various different trolls that you know. Which includes your two moirails, Talbot and Algaea. You aren't quite sure how the three of you ended up together paleways, in what some might call a crime against the quadrants, but the opinions of others on this matter isn't something that you care about.

Now you are currently in you hive, which is located in the middle of a DENSE FOREST inhabited by quite the variety of creatures that will happily murder your face. That is if you didn't enjoy HUNTING them down for sport with your trusty SHOTGUN. As that is the only real form of entertainment there is around here. Of course, your BLINDNESS makes hunting down the various beasts a bit difficult. However, thanks to the unique variety of ECHOLOCATION that you use, which you were taught by your lusus. Well she didn't really teach you so much as she inspired you to develop it. Regardless it helps makes it a breeze to put down the numerous MURDEROUS beasts.

Your trolltag is anarchicTerror and the way you speak can be a bit annoying somehtigns for thsoe who are not you

Regardless of that information, you were just told by Talbot that he was going to drop some machine or something or other off in your hive. And since you heard from Althaf that deploying those was the onlys thing he could do from the menu that popped up, you assume that it stands to reason that you should deploy them in Algaea's hive as well, since they are obviously needed for the game.

Now since you obviously can't see where you're placing down these pieces of machinery, you do a bit of guess work and hope you place them somewhere good.

\-- anarchicTerror started trolling skittishMonk --

AT: hEy, so i Juts placed down some stuff in your hiev, in a plae where i Hpoe isn't like the worst place i Could have placed them   
sm: (] oh yes. 7ha7 mus7 have been 7he noises i jus7 heard. i was jus7 abou7 7o go and inves7iga7e [)   
AT: tAlbot, didn't really give me any sort of instructions on what to do with them, but i Think we can figure this out    
AT: aLso, if you havn'et gone so you should probably connect to like pAidii as their server player considering that they and aLthaf are the only one i believe without server plater. aNs if you connect aLthaf, than that we wouldn't have that singel loop that you mentioned in the memo   
sm: (] yes. you are indeed. correc7 abou7 7ha7. as i have already gone and done 7ha7 connec7ed 7o 7hem. and i have already deployed 7hem in 7heir hive [)   
AT: aNyways, i'M gonna check the memo in case someone has elft what is needed to do with the machneis

\-- anarchicTerror stopped trolling skittishMonk --

Having finished that conversation, you turn your attention to the memo, as you are not going to mess with large pieces of machinery blind, no pun intended.

AT: sO, has anyone figured out what they'er supposed to do with the machines at all   
MM: @->-- WELL, FROM WHAT I'M SEEING FROM WHAT TALBOT IS DOING, HE HAS GONE AND REMOVED A LID FROM THE ONE WITH THE WHEEL. AFTERWARDS SPUN THE WHEEL AND PUT IT ON ANOTHER MACHINE. AS WELL AS INSERTED A CARD INTO THE MACHINE AS WELL. SO I'M GUESSING THE LAST MACHINE IS GOING TO USE THE RESULT OF THIS AND THAT'S WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE.   
CA: sSs ARE YOU SERIOUSLY WATCHING HIM WITHOUT ANY SENSE OF SHAME AT ALL, FOR SHAME sSs   
MM: @->-- IF IT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER I HAVE SINCE STOPPED WATCHING HIM ONCE HE STARTED USING THE SECOND MACHINE. AND HAVE SINCE BEEN WAITING FOR OCYETE TO DEPLOY THEM FOR ME. SO THAT I MAY PROCEED AS WELL.   
Aa: ooh shiit riight ii shoouuld bee geettiing oon thaat   
MM: @->-- ARE YOU STAYING THAT YOU HAVEN'T?   
Aa: ii meeaan yeeaah   
MM: @->-- JUST DO IT SOON ALRIGHT.

Hearing that and deciding that nothing else useful would coming up anytime seen. You start to get up to make your way towards where the machines drop in your hive. But before you even take a step away from your computer, a news alert pops up. Talking about how several meteors have impacted the planet and listening off the coordinates of confirmed crash locations. And while that wouldn't be something, you'd pay attention to usually. One of the sets of coordinates were very familiar to you. And then it clicked, those were the coordinates of Talbot's hive.

As you come to that revelation, you feel a sense of panic grip your bloodpusher, causing you to panickedly message him

AT: tAlbot, are you alive   
AT: pLease fucking tell me you are alive right now   
ct: yeah... i'm alive... why the fuck wouldn't i...   
AT: oH i Don't know, how about because i Just get a news alert about meteor impact sites, and one of them is where your hive is, or rather was   
ct: oh so that was an a real meteor that was heading towards me... so i was there in the impact zone... i'm not any more...   
AT: wEll, where are you now   
ct: i do not know... my whole hive has moved w/ m to this new location tho...   
AT: wHat do you mean you dn't know hwere you are, forther more what how could your hive have possibeld moved with you   
ct: i don't fucking know...   
AT: >:/

Well it looks like you don't have to worry about him after all. Not that you were really worried about him to beginning with. Since that whole situation has been taken care of, you actually make your way towards where you heard the machines that, the more idiotic of your two moirails, had placed in your hive. Reaching the room that you can hear the presence of things that weren't in there previously, you assume you have found the machines. Feeling them to find the one with wheel on it, which is easy enough considering it is the only one with a wheel on it to begin with.

Taking out your trusty shotgun, you take aim at what you believe is the top of the machine and pull the trigger. Hearing a clanging sound, you assume that you have successfully removed the lid from the device. Feeling quite satisfied with yourself since you did it on the first try. However, that feeling of satisfaction slowly left you as you hear something strange moving around the room. Something strange that is letting out an annoying noise from it. Moving on instincts that have been shaped from sweeps of experience facing wild savage beasts, you turn on the spot, aim your shotgun at the whatever it is that is moving around in your hive, solely based on the sound of their movements and the noise they are making, and pull your trigger. No longer hearing the thing move, nor the sound it was making. Along with how you did not hear the slug hit the wall of the room, you figure that you have hit it.

Now that that thing is taken care of, you turn the wheel of the machine, and hear it extrude an object from it. Grabbing it you place it on the machine that you, when you were searching for the one with the wheel, felt had a slot on it. Now you just had to find the card that goes in there, taking a step, you notice something under your foot. Bending over and picking it up, you feel that it is a large card about the size of the slot. Figuring that this is what you need, you insert it into the slot and hear the machine come to life. You wait patiently as the machine finishes whatever it was that it was doing, you grab the result of the machines work and place it on the last of the three machines. As soon as you had pulled you hand back from placing the object, you hear this machine come to life as well.

And as suddenly as the machine had come to life, it had finished doing whatever it was that it was going. Clicking your tongue to try and get an idea of what it was the the machine had done, you hear the presence of something on the machine that wasn't there before. Picking it up, you turn it over in your hands, trying to figure out what it is.

Despite spending whole minutes of feeling it with your hands, you are no closer to figuring out what it is that you are holding in your hands. Now you could try and take a picture of it and send it to either Talbot or Algaea and let them figure out what it is and tell you. Or, instead of that you could throw it against the wall and proceed to shot it out of frustration. And that second option is mighty appealing. And with that thought, you load a birdshot shell into your shotgun, then proceed to yeet whatever it is that you are hold towards a wall, and in a fluid motion, aim your shotgun where you believe it is going to impact the wall and shoot after a moment.

You hear a shattering noise, as well as the sound of your birdshot hitting the wall. And then all you hear is silence.

>Change Character?

>Yes;

>Who do you change to?

>The mysterious character that hasn't appeared yet;

>Sorry, you can't be her, as she is currently sleeping and unavailable at this moment in time.

>Algaea then, might as well go on to the next troll in the loop;

>Fair enough.

Your name is Algaea Lalner and you are about 8 and a half sweeps old.

You are currently in your hive, or at least the closest thing a jade that lives in the BROODING CAVERNS has to a hive. It's really just a few side caves that are are connect to the main cavern, but you still call it your hive. You have various interests, such as MARTIAL ARTS, which has nothing to do with a conversation you overheard between two of your fellow jades about they thought that girls that worked out were pretty, not at all. You also have a minor interest in doing AMATEUR DETECTIVE WORK, which has nothing to do with the fact that you once met a really cute goldblood that thought the smart trolls were cute, completely unrelated. The room that you are currently in, is a small cave that branches off from one of the larger caves that you have claimed as your living space, which you have desinated as being your respiteblock, only occupied by your computer, recuperacoon and a shelf of the varies book you enjoy reading, a large majority of them being of the romantic genre.

Your troll tag is skittishMonk and (] 7he manner in which you 7alk is a me7hod of speaking. 7ha7 some migh7 call unique. bu7 you simply 7hink as normal [)

But you should get to the matter that is currently at hand, you just had a conversation with Caecam, one of your dear moirails, whom despite what Talbot might think you do not have flush crush on, not at all. It's not like you wish for her to look at you with a loving expression on her face, as she wraps her strong arms around you as she whispers sweet nothings in your ear. Not at all, whatsoever. Moving past that hypothetical fantasy that you certainly have never had in the slightest. Back to the topic you were on, before you had gone and digressed. Caecam had informed you that she had placed the machines that appeared to be a vital part of this game in your hive and had suggested that you should deploy the machines in Paagal's and Athoos' hive. Which you had already done so just before she had message you. You believe it would be a good idea to send Paagal a message informing them of that.

\-- skittishMonk started trolling galavantingKnight --

sm: (] hello 7here paagal dear. i was jus7 messaging you 7o inform you 7ha7 i have 7aken 7he ini7ia7ive 7o deploy 7he needed machines and devices for 7his game in your hive. and didn'7 wish 7o alarm you by no7 7elling you abou7 7he sudden addi7ion to your hive [)   
gK: That is a long way of explaining the noise that I had just heard   
gK: Would it have not made more sense to to tell me this before you placed the machines or perhaps a bit sooner after you placed them   
sm: (] yes. i7 would have been a be77er idea 7o inform you before hand. however in my defense. righ7 as i was abou7 7o message you i was pulled in7o a conversa7ion and needed to finish 7ha7 before i moved on and messaged you [)   
gK: >:/   
gK: What can not focus on more than one conversation at a time   
sm: (] more i felt like i7 was going 7o be a shor7 conversa7ion and i7 made more sense 7o finish i7 up before moving on [)   
gK: Fair enough so is that all you wanted to talk about   
sm: (] yes. 7ha7 was all 7ha7 i wan7ed 7o discuss a7 7his momen7. bu7 if you are wan7ing 7o 7alk abou7 some7hing i am all ears [)   
gK: Hmm no

\-- galavantingKnight stopped trolling skittishMonk --

Well that was a bit rude, but fair enough, they must be wanting to deal with the game's machine as soon as possible. No time for chit chat in that case, and that is perfectly understandable. You believe it would be a good idea for you yourself to get on that as well. Making your way to the area in which you heard heavy machinery earlier. And once you had found it, you followed the instruction that Althaf had described in the memo on what to do. But it seems as though the cap on this one device isn't coming lose at all. Perhaps it needs a bit of force applied to it. Taking a stance and equipping a set of finger-less gloves, you deliver a firm blow to the lid, one that while not that hard, seemed to have been enough to cause the cap to seemingly jump off of the device. Well that takes care of that, you move to turn the wheel and place what you get on the second machine. When you notice something moving out of the corner of your eye. A weird flashing orb that hurt to look at. In shock you eject an item out of your sylladex at it, oh dear there goes that pillow you like so much.

Deciding to ignore the thing you just accidentally threw a pillow at, you set up the second machine and get the cylinder from the from device all carved up using the card that you found on the floor. Moving the resulting carved item to the finale machine, you are greeted by the sight of it scanning the item you had place and it just projecting a new object into being on the large platform of the machine. And soon it was done, leaving you with an item you had no idea what you were to do with. It appeared to be some sort of jade colored butterfly that comes to fly out of nowhere. Flying around the room, causing you give chase after it.

Soon, you come to a stop, thinking that you are never going to get it if you keep chasing it. Thinking that maybe, you don't have to come to it, but instead you could invite it to come to you. Holding out a hand, with a single finger extended out. You then wait for what feels like hours but was most likely only mere minutes. But soon enough, the butterfly slowly flutters on over to you and lands on your finger. Slowly you move your other hand towards the butterfly and give it a light tap. That for some reason cause it to shatter, oh dear oh no. That isn't good. Doing you best to pick up the shattered pieces, you slowly and carefully tried to put them back together once more. Surprisingly, the pieces stick together despite them not feeling the least bit sticky. Soon enough you have reconstructed the butterfly and have it laying in the palms of your hands. Telling it that you were sorry about breaking it, you lift it up and present it the air, giving it the freedom to take off once more.

And right as the butterfly takes off from your hands, a bright white light consumes your vision as you look at the artificial butterfly with a smile on your face, as it all fades to white.

>Change Character?


	3. I (don't) want to set the world on fire

>Change Character?

>Yes;

Your name is Jyotis Morana and you are so close to being 7 sweeps old that you basically are.

You are in the process of dragging and dropping these machines into the hive the troll that you had connected to as server player. And really if this is all the game you all were so hyped to play is about, then you are highly disappointed. But since Paidii, the one that you don't like as much as the other one, had gone out of their way to be your server player and deploy the same devices you are currently dropping, somewhere in the upper half of your hive. Hopefully something more entertaining will come about from this.

Now you might as well talk about your interest, as you have quite a few of them. FIRE is a bit interest of your, as well as CHEMISTRY, tho that is mainly due to all the fire and explosions you can create as a result. You also enjoy SWIMMING with your lusus, and the occasional TTRPG. And you also enjoy spending each day to basically the fullest, and you do this through actions that some might say make you a menace to society or some crap like that. You have, as a result of this been basically put on the do not invite list for most of, if not all of the high class gathering of highbloods that occur on this planet. And you are quite proud of that in fact.

Your trolltag is charismaticArsonist and you communicated with sSs MESSAGES THAT ARE SURROUND BY FIRE TO COMMUNICATE YOUR LOVE OF BURNING THINGS sSs

Anyways, you swim up from the bottom of your tower-like hive and emerge out of the section that is underwater, which is where your respiteblock is, and into the dry section of your hive, which is where you keep all of your dangerous equipment and chemicals. You dry yourself and your swimsuit off, and were about to put on your fire safety suit when you noticed that it seemed that Paagal went and put the machines in the same room as where you transition from the aquatic part of your hive to the dry part. Looking at the devices that are for some reason important to this game you are playing, you go to remove the lid from the device that had the obvious wheel on it. It was a bit stuck on there, but you are easily able to pry it off with using some of that good highblood strength of yours. And out of the machine comes what you could only describe as a seizure orb. Waving a hand at it to make to do away, you turn your attention to the machine and turn the wheel. Gaining some sort of violet cylinder, you go about the business of getting it carved and placing it on the final device to get something.

And soon enough you have been given what looks like a small set of drums, as well as two sticks. Seeing no other obvious course of action, you begin to smash and jam out a sweet ass melody on these here drums. And the more and more you played the more and more you were focused on this task, violently bashing and drumming. Absentmindedly you notice you lusus floating into the room, most likely to investigate what all the noise is. When they see the weird orb that came out of the first machine. Curious, your lusus is, they begin to inspect it with their snot, making contact with it. Causing a bright flash that originated from where they and the orb were. However you had no time to play attention to that, as moments later, you deliver what appears to be the final note in this song you were playing, and a sort of blast that throws you back, where you land in the water, and everything goes white.

>Change Character?

>If we must;

Your name is Ocyete Elytra and you are 8 sweeps old.

And you are currently in your hive, sitting at your computer, and are repeatedly being messaged by Althaf to deploy the machines in his hive. And yeah, he has a point you should really get on that. And on that you do.

And in the meantime whilst you are placing these machines in the hive of your casual acquaintance, you might as well talk about yourself, and the various aspect that make you up. Like your interests, which include WATCHING EASTERN ANIMATION, as it is much more interesting than anything else there is to watch. You enjoy DRAWING the characters from the shows you watch as well. MUSIC is another one of your interests as there is just something about meaningless noise coming together to make some amazing, that you like. People have described you as being just a tad TOO LAID BACKED and should take things more seriously. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that opinion, you just enjoy GOING WITH THE FLOW of things, mainly due to you having a general idea of what is going to happen, but that doesn't mean you don't take things seriously. And despite what some might assume, you do approximately no drugs.

Your troll tag is articulateArtist and you taalk in aa sloowiish maaneer juust liikee yoouu liikee to eexpeeriieencee liifee

Back to reality, you have just finished deploying the Cruxtruder, Totem Lathe, and the Alchemiter, and for some reason you feel like you are the only one who actually read the names before deploying them, in Althaf's hive, side by side, all in a neat row. And now that that's done. You can send Althaf a message, so they stop bothering you about it.

Aa: yoo aalthaaf   
Aa: ii deeplooyiieed thee stuuff iin yoouur hiivee   
MM: @->-- THANK YOU FOR THAT. APOLOGIZES FOR ALL THE MESSAGES, IT JUST SEEMED LIKE YOU WERE TAKING YOUR SWEET TIME DOING SO AND I WAS GETTING IMPATIENT.   
Aa: iits chiill my brootheer wee aall caan't reelaax iin thee riiveer oof eexiistaancee aand leet iit briing yoouu wheeree iit briings yoouu liikee ii doo   
MM: @->-- YES... WHATEVER THE FUCK THAT MEANS. BUT REGARDLESS, THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN.   
Aa: yeeaah yeeaah yoouu geet oon thaat uusiing oof thee cruuxtruudeer aand shiit   
MM: @->-- CRUXTRUDER? WAIT A MOMENT. OH, HUH SO THAT'S WHAT IT IS CALLED. DIDN'T ACTUALLY READ IT, I JUST PLACED IT WITHOUT THINKING.   
Aa: thaats faaiir caaiioo

\-- articulateArtist stopped trolling motivatingMedic --

Well that was a nice conversation, time to get yourself set up and this section of the game done with. On your way out of the room, you past by your lusus, a beetle about the size of your head, while they mainly lay around these days, they were much more active when you were younger, guess when you started to take things slow they started to as well. Anyways, you make your way to where you believe Avsati placed the machines. Eventually making your way there, and you are greeted by the sight of a familiar creature. It is a large completely white snake that is resting on the top of the cruxtruder, and one while one might brush it off as some lost lusus that managed to break in. However, you know that it isn't, as there are things about it that make it different from a lusus. Like for example, how it seems to be missing eyes. It also seemed to be able to teleport, considering the number of times you have set it outside and come back in to find it back in your hive.

Seeing as it is currently resting on something that you need, you take out your umbrella and give the side of the cruxtruder with tap with it. The resulting vibration cause the snake to look at you with a sort of, what do you want expression. You explain to it that you need to use the device that it is currently resting on. And it moves off of the lid, and coils around the base of the cruxtruder. And with them out of the way, you are free to smack the lid with your umbrella and get it off. And out comes an orb that hurts to look at. Turning away from it, you get a cylinder from the cruxtruder, you place it onto the totem lathe and insert the card into to. Retrieving the carved result, you look at the glowing flashing orb that is just hovering in the air, deciding that this is something you should do first, you go and retrieve a glob of slime that you have in your sylladex for when you need to take a moment and de-stress, and toss it into the orb. Once that was taken care of, you place the curved object onto the alchemiter. And soon it created an object for you to interact with.

It looks like a small music box, you give the handle a slow turn, and out comes a horrible noise. Like music that was slowed down too much. You begin to turn the crank as fast as you can, and out came a beautiful melody, the likes of which you have never heard before. You start turning and turning the crank at the fastest pace you can music. Eventually the song, like things, ends. The last note hangs in the air, reverberating with you. And that is when a blinding light enters your vision, soon overpowering it, as the world turns to silence, and it all fades to white.

>Whose next?


	4. The devil is in the details

>Whose next?

>The one that came before the previous character;

Your name is Avsati Avdima and you are 7 sweeps old.

You have just finished deploying the needed machinery into the hive of Ocyete and are heading towards where you believe Jyotis had gone and placed them. As you are heading there you might as well talk about yourself. And the best place to start when you talk about yourself is with your interests. And while you have many different interests, the ones that you would describe as your main ones are ARCHERY, as it is a fine display of art in motion that takes proper aim and attention to the details of process. This is also the reasoning behind why you also enjoy SHARPSHOOTING. As focusing onto a single point to hit it is something that appeals to you greatly. You also enjoy FISHING as well, this has more to do with how it is a nice and relaxing activity you participate in with your lusus. Speaking of your lusus, you see them out of the corner of your eye, sliding along on their stomach on across a long strip of ice heading toward only they know where.

Your lusus is the reasoning for why your hive is, as Jyotis described it as, a HALF-FROZEN WONDERLAND. As the large amounts of icy and frozen floors make it much easier for them to get around. It is also is a method of travel that you commonly use, not the sliding on your stomach part of it, as that would be ridiculous. You slide across them on your shoes. But regardless of that, it seems that they don't seem to be worried about the noises that the machinery that Jyotis deployed caused. 

Your trolltag is destructiveMarksman and 1 [You prefer to contain your messages and such. within an easily established area. As well as numbering them by the order of which they were sent for easy future reference.]

But that is enough of that, as you have important matters to attend to. Which is to interact with the machines that had been placed in your hive. An alert rings out of your palmhusk, seems as though there are meteors crashing down all over the planet. However, it does not seem like any have impacted anywhere near your hive at all, so it doesn't seem like you have to worry yet.

Having arrived where Jyotis had gone and placed the machinery, you begin the process of using the machines. Shooting the lid with a rifle to remove it, causing a strange flashing orb to come out. Leaving it alone, as it is not a part of the process that you have read. Spinning the wheel and retrieving the ejected object, you place it down, and insert the card to carve it. And upon the carving coming to completion, you grab and bring it to the final piece of machinery that there is. The one that you do not know what exactly do with, but you can improvise with the details and information you already have. Placing it on the smaller platform, it seems to scan it and it generates an object.

Picking it up you see that it is some sort of puzzle box. Sitting down on the floor you start to turn it over in your hands, seeing not obvious place for where you were to start. You sat like that for minutes, trying to figure out what it was you were supposed to start solving this puzzle. Eventually while you were thinking of where you were supposed to start, without thinking, your hands began to move, and push pieces of the puzzle box around, as if your hands know what to do despite that you don't. While you are entranced by the movement of your hands, following some set of instructions that you do not know, you notice almost out of the corner of your vision the flashing orb floating in front of a patch of ice. You also notice your lusus sliding down that patch of ice and collides into the orb. And before you could go and ask if they are ok. You finish the puzzle box, and it opens. And out of it come a bright flash of light that blinds you, and the world around you fades to white, and what seems like a curtain closes. And you are no longer where you once were.

>Two remaining, who is next?

>Whose ever next on the list;

Your name is Althaf Haruya, and you are 7, but are getting close to being 8, sweeps old.

You have been walking around your hive, waiting for Ocyete to place the stuff in you hive so you can dip your toes into the game the you and your friends are playing together. As you were basically the troll who kicked started this whole thing off by placing the stuff in Talbot's hive.

You have been sending off messages to Ocyete since they said in the memo that they haven't actually started on placing the stuff in your hive, To keep yourself busy, outside of bothering Ocyete repeatedly, you might as well talk about yourself and your interests and hobbies. One of the activities you enjoy participating in the most is doing YOGA and EXERCISING in general. As you enjoy staying in fit shape, a healthy mind resides in a healthy body after all. You also enjoy GARDENING, as such an activity is great for relaxing, as well as developing your mind. And you have been told that should find a way to relax quite often, of you have a slight bad habit of letting your emotions get ahead of you and cloud your judgement a bit. You do always make an effort to apologize for your brash behavior. You also know quite the bit about MEDICINE, and how to properly treat injuries than your average troll.

Your trolltag is motivatingMedic and the way you talk is @->-- PROCEEDED BY A FLOWER AS A GIFT TO THOSE YOU CONVERSE WITH.

Now that is out of the way, you just heard a loud noise come from somewhere else in your hive. And as you make your way towards it, you receive a response from Ocyete at last. So, you open up your messaging app on your palmhusk and see what it is they had said.

Aa: yoo aalthaaf  
Aa: ii deeplooyiieed thee stuuff iin yoouur hiivee  
MM: @->-- THANK YOU FOR THAT. APOLOGIZES FOR ALL THE MESSAGES, IT JUST SEEMED LIKE YOU WERE TAKING YOUR SWEET TIME DOING SO AND I WAS GETTING IMPATIENT.  
Aa: iits chiill my brootheer wee aall caan't reelaax iin thee riiveer oof eexiistaancee aand leet iit briing yoouu wheeree iit briings yoouu liikee ii doo  
MM: @->-- YES... WHATEVER THE FUCK THAT MEANS. BUT REGARDLESS, THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN.  
Aa: yeeaah yeeaah yoouu geet oon thaat uusiing oof thee cruuxtruudeer aand shiit  
MM: @->-- CRUXTRUDER? WAIT A MOMENT. OH, HUH SO THAT'S WHAT IT IS CALLED. DIDN'T ACTUALLY READ IT, I JUST PLACED IT WITHOUT THINKING.  
Aa: thaats faaiir caaiioo

\-- articulateArtist stopped trolling motivatingMedic --

Well that was good news, they had finally placed that which you needed in your hive, and that must have been what the loud noise was. Nice to see that everything is now coming up Althaf. And now you can finally dip your toes in even more than you had previously with placing the stuff in Talbot's hive. With that you can finally find the machines and get this show on the road.

Upon finding the needed machinery, you take out a megaphone from your Strife deck, you aim for the lid and give a brief shout into your megaphone. A loud horrendous sound leaves your megaphone, reverberates within the lid. Loosening it enough for you to remove it. Out comes a flashing orb, that really hurt look at, it seemed like it was would be capable of causing seizures if one looked at it for too long. Disregarding it you proceeded to do what you saw Talbot do, and turn the wheel on the device and put the cylinder it gives you on the next piece of equipment, to get it carved.

And placing the carved cylinder on the last machine. You watch it get scanned by the machine and create an object for you to interact with. And out came what appeared to be a seed. Guess what you got to do is plant it. Since you got no dirt here to plant it in, you pick it up and make your way to your garden so you could plant it. On your way there, you notice the orb that you had release follow you and making noises that you did not like. Once you had made your way to your garden, you grab a shovel you have laying around and toss it at the orb in an attempt to get it to leave you alone.

You plant the seed that you were given, give it some water, and sit down and begin to wait for it to grow. And you didn't have to wait long at all, as soon it began to grow at a rapid rate, far faster than it had any right to do so. And soon it engulfed your view, and you began yelling at it through your megaphone, in an attempt of to stop its growth. And soon enough, you start to make way in clearing the vast foliage that had been created from that single seed. Soon enough, it was all gone, save for a single flower. Reaching down you pick it and bring it up to look at. And from the flower a bright light emerges, consuming your vision like the foliage had done, but no sound helped in clearing it. As soon enough, the world faded to white and, despite the screaming you know you were doing, went silent.

>Character Change.


	5. Jekyll and Hyde are bitchass motherfuckers

>Character Change.

Your name is Paagal Paidii and you are about 6 and a half sweeps old.

And are just finished deploying the needed equipment for this game that you are playing with several of your friends, and other trolls, into Jyotis' hive. And you are now just waiting for Algaea to deploy the stuff in your's and Athoos' hive. Speaking of which, you should probably introduce yourself in more detail. Let's start with your hobbies and interest and move on from there.

One of your main interests in CONSTRUCTING PLOTS AND SCHEMES, that you will never actually act upon as they are much beyond your actual capabilities. You also have a keen interest in KEEPING ATHOOS SAFE from all the horrors and such of this planet. You also have an ever so slight tendency for the DRAMATICS, as can be plainly seen in your many many imaginary plans. But yes, speaking of Athoos, you should probably explain whom she is. She is, of course, the troll that you share your hive with, and several other trolls you know refer to her as your better half, which is ridiculous to you as neither of you are half of anything and are better classified as being each other's counterpart. You share a lot of things with her beyond the same hive with her in fact, such as your lusus. But really doesn't matter right now as she is currently is asleep and there is no point bothering her at all in this moment in time.

Your trolltag is galavantingKnight and You talk in a relatively normal manner

And it was during this introduction of your that you heard a loud sound come from somewhere in your hive. And since you have taken it up as being your job to make sure that Athoos is safe, so that means you got to go and investigate whatever that sound was. On your way towards the sound, Algaea starts to message you.

\-- skittishMonk started trolling galavantingKnight --

sm: (] hello 7here paagal dear. i was jus7 messaging you 7o inform you 7ha7 i have 7aken 7he ini7ia7ive 7o deploy 7he needed machines and devices for 7his game in your hive. and didn'7 wish 7o alarm you by no7 7elling you abou7 7he sudden addi7ion to your hive [)   
gK: That is a long way of explaining the noise that I had just heard   
gK: Would it have not made more sense to to tell me this before you placed the machines or perhaps a bit sooner after you placed them   
sm: (] yes. i7 would have been a be77er idea 7o inform you before hand. however in my defense. righ7 as i was abou7 7o message you i was pulled in7o a conversa7ion and needed to finish 7ha7 before i moved on and messaged you [)   
gK: >:/   
gK: What can not focus on more than one conversation at a time   
sm: (] more i felt like i7 was going 7o be a shor7 conversa7ion and i7 made more sense 7o finish i7 up before moving on [)   
gK: Fair enough so is that all you wanted to talk about   
sm: (] yes. 7ha7 was all 7ha7 i wan7ed 7o discuss a7 7his momen7. bu7 if you are wan7ing 7o 7alk abou7 some7hing i am all ears [)   
gK: Hmm no

\-- galavantingKnight stopped trolling skittishMonk --

Well, that explains that noise that you heard. Continuing your walk, you make your way to where you heard the noise of Algaea placing the machinery. And once you are there, you are greeted by sight of three large piece of equipment that had no business being as large as they were. Deciding that it isn't worth worrying over, you begin the process of using them. Starting with stabbing at the lid with your spear to loosen it up and retrieving the cylinder that comes out of it when the wheel is turned. Ignoring the weird orb that comes out of it when the lid is first removed. Carving the cylinder and waiting on the machine to finish that up. And it is during that time you are waiting for the cylinder carving to come to completion that the orb, that came out of the first piece of machinery you interacted with, begins to hover in front of you, as if it wanted your attention. Not feeling up to entertaining it, you retrieve a stuffed animal from yours and Athoos' shared sylladex and toss it at the orb in an attempt of making it leave you alone. And you stop paying attention to it when you toss the stuffed animal at it, as that is when the machine had stopped its carving. Turning around, you grab it and place it on the final machine. As it scans the carved object, you let out a yawn. Seems like you need a nap. Slowly you drift off to sleep, as the last machine creates an object on its large platform.

\-- galavantingKnight is no longer online --  
\-- knightlyGalavanter is now on online --

>Persona Change;

Waking up you notice that you aren't where you thought you would wake up, as this is obviously not your respiteblock, looking around you notice several large piece of machinery before you, along with what appears to be a slightly glowing floating stuffed cholerbear, one that looks very similar to the one that you had made recently. One that was also currently missing from yours and Galie's sylladex. Hmm, well they must have had a reason for doing whatever it was that they did with it. Cause for as long as you have known them, Galie has never purposely done anything that would end up hurting you. Now, what are you to do?

>Introduce yourself;

Oh yes, of course. You can be such a silly billy sometimes. But Galie says that's alright, because according to them, the only thing that really matter is that you're happy.

Your name is Athoos Paidii and you are, ummm. Oh right, you are 6 and a half whole sweeps old.

There are so many different things that you like doing, like making STUFFED ANIMALS, and playing pretend with them. You especially like having TEA PARTIES with your stuffed friends. You also like SEWING CLOTHES together for them as well, cause obviously they need some way of expressing their personalities. But you don't just make clothes for your stuff animals, you also make some for you, Galie and all your friends that want some Athoos' originals. You also really really enjoy just making a big ol' pile of your stuffed animals and just hugging and cuddling as many as you can at once. Sometimes your friends call you a, precious cinnamon roll that this world does not deserve, which you really don't understand at all, as that is just silly as you are obvious a troll, not a delicious sweet treat. And no one ever tells you what that means whenever you ask. And that includes Galie, they just tell you that you're adorable and never explains. But oh well, that's alright.

Your trolltag is knightlyGalavanter and you talk in a way, that you think, reflects what some call your carefree attitude.

And now that that is taken care of, you should probably figure out what Galie was doing before you woke up. Taking a look around, you notice the floating stuff cholerbear hovering around an object that was just sitting there on a platform. Moving towards it, you see that the object is in fact what appears to be a stuffed animal that look remarkably like your lusus. Inspecting it you notice that it seems that one of its seams have burst and it is in need of repairs. Taking out your sewing kit from your sylladex, you begin to fit up this poor injured stuffed animal. Hmm a melody with no words, as you work. And soon enough, with careful hands and stitching, you repair your new friend. Holding them up, to make sure that there is nothing else you need to do to bring them back to one hundred percent. A bright white light consumes your vision, and everything seems to fade away.

>The Prologue Ends.


	6. It's a whole new place, with a brand new attitude

>Shit, let's be Talbot;

You come back to reality not too long after you went and ripped the empty book in half, at least you don't believe it was too long. Taking a look around you notice that you are no longer in Kansas anymore, not that you were ever in a place called Kansas. What the fuck even is a Kansas anyway? Questions for later.

You head back inside to the familiarity of your hive. And as you do, you pass by what appears to be some sort floating glowing vacuum cleaner. And it sorta reminds you of the weird orb that you throw something at. Said something you believe might have been a vacuum cleaner in fact...

You are too tired for this; you might be needing some of your special blend in order for reality to start making sense again. And Caecam has started to message you, but this will be the wake-up call to reality that you need.

AT: tAlbot, are you alive   
AT: pLease fucking tell me you are alive right now   
ct: yeah... i'm alive... why the fuck wouldn't i...   
AT: oH i Don't know, how about because i Just get a news alert about meteor impact sites, and one of them is where your hive is, or rather was   
ct: oh so that was an a real meteor that was heading towards me... so i was there in the impact zone... i'm not any more...   
AT: wEll, where are you now   
ct: i do not know... my whole hive has moved w/ m to this new location tho...   
AT: wHat do you mean you dn't know hwere you are, forther more what how could your hive have possibeld moved with you   
ct: i don't fucking know...   
AT: >:/

Well, that was not the wake-up call that you wanted, but it's the wake-up call you are going to get it seems. It's interesting that you still have an internet connect out wherever the fuck you are at the moment. It would also be a good idea to go out and get an idea of where you are. Heading back out to the balcony you were just out on, and proceed to climb up the branches of your tree and head up to the very top of your hive, also known as the highest part of your hive, to get a view of your surroundings.

Staring out at the world around you, you see many many walls rising out of the ground, forming an endless labyrinth of sorts. Though looking at it for a bit longer, you can see what are probably dead ends, so it's just a maze rather than a labyrinth, but you digress. All of the walls of the maze look old, slightly overgrown with vines and foliage, with numerous cracks in the wall, all of various sizes. Some of which look big enough for you to use as grips and climb up the walls. But that is currently here nor there at this moment in time. As you continue to look around, you notice something that you should have probably noticed sooner. High above your head are 15 large hovering spirographs, just hovering there in the sky that seems to be at an ever present twilight. Off in the distance you could swear you saw some words in the sky, words that read, LAND OF MYSTERIES AND PUZZLES, but as soon as you blink, they disappear as if they were never there. Fuck, you are too tired for this.

After just standing there for a while, you climb down and set off to explore this weird place. But before that, you gather some supplies, which is just basically some snack bars, a thing of rope, and a pair of durable finger-less gloves. Standing in front of your hive, you enter the maze through the only way in that you saw from your roof. Entering the maze, you eventually come to a split in the path, and going with traditional maze logic, you go left and hope that you come across something soon.

And soon enough, you come to a dead end, but so you turn around and head back the direction you came and go down the other path. Which also comes up as a dead end. Now you could investigate the dead ends and find any sort of secret switches and such, thus playing along with the universe's game. Or you could say fuck that and attempt to scale the walls. There really isn't any debate, you start to climb up one of the walls that make up the maze, using cracks and the foliage as hand grips. You eventually make it on top of the maze wall. And while it wasn't easy, you really didn't have any more difficultly scaling the wall than you do climbing your tree.

You start wandering onto the walls of the maze with no real destination in mind. Soon you spot some strange creatures on the ground below. It sorta vaguely reminded you of a cholerbear in a weird way. But regardless of that, you make a noise to get their attention, hopefully they're friendly. And once they hear you that start looking around for you, eventually looking up, and once one of them found you, they begun to point at to share your location with the others. Soon enough they all know where you are and begin to throw rocks at you. Well that isn't nice at all.

Crouching down, you jump off of the top of the wall, and land directly on top of one of the creatures cushioning your fall, as well as doing a good job of injuring them as well. Leaving you with two uninjured, but very startled, something or others. And one that looks like it's on death's door. Well this seems like it's going to be easy. Whipping out your chain, you swing it, and belt the two creatures across their faces, at least what you assume to be their faces. And they looked a bit winded from that, but they seem like they're going to take your disrespect laying down though. For as soon after you had completed your attack, the two of them had gone to attack you, causing you to take a few steps back, and freeing the one you were standing on.

One of them ends up scratching one of your cheeks, causing a small bit of olive blood to ooze out slightly. Well if that's the why they want to play it, then fine. You swap the chain that you currently have in your hands out for a different one you have in your strife deck, now instead of plain old chain, you are holding the chain of a chainsaw. And with your weapon swapping complete, you once again swing at the creatures, this time impacting where you are sure their neck is, and and you pull the chain to complete its motion, causing the chain to slice into them. And it seems like you used more strength than you thought you did, as you manged to slice quite deep into the creatures. As soon as you had completed the motion, the creatures had burst into weird objects that somehow looks 2D, despite occupying a three dimensional space. Deciding not to question it, you turn your attention to the creature that is still on the ground, and you believe is writhing in pain. Deciding that no, you don't feel like just leaving it there, and are instead going to put it out of its misery. You slash you chain at its neck, killing it. It also turns into those weird things. And as you move close to inspect the weird things that the creatures had dropped, they begun to float towards you. And were sorta just absorbed into you, somehow.

You have no idea about that at all, so for the sake of whatever sanity you have remaining, you decided to not think about it at all. You make the decision that it might be a good idea to head back to your hive and check in on how everyone else is doing. You scale a wall once again and make you way back to your hive.

>And like all things, we must change characters.

>Algaea time;

Soon enough, everything isn't white anymore, and you can once again see your surroundings. You are still in the cave in which Caecam had placed the machines, not that there was any reason for you to no longer be there. As you hadn't move at all while you could not see, so it wouldn't make any amount of sense for you to be in a different place than you were previously. Strangely enough, you do not hear the familiar, ever present noise of the brooding caverns. Which are equal parts strange and worrying, as there is never silence in the caverns, as there is always something making a sound. Be it drones bringing in genetic material, the Mother Grub laying eggs, the general hustle and bustle of other jades attending to the Mother Grub, Lusi doing whatever it is they do, or even the sounds of young trolls dying for any sort of reason. The lack of anything is a large cause for concern.

Heading out of the tunnel that connects your group of side caves to the main cavern, you are greeted by a shocking sight. On the other side of the short tunnel that should lead to the main caverns, is the outside, but instead of the seeing the land that surrounds the section of the caverns in which the enclave you belong to stayed. But rather, it was a completely new area, full of hills and plateaus, as far as the eye could see. And on each hill and plateau that you could see, was the mouth to a cave, that you could barely see inside of. Walking out, you notice that there is a large hill that surrounds where your hive is. It was about the size you would assume would be needed to just fit all of the caves that you have as your hive.

Taking another look around, the sky was light by an unseen source, painting the world with a gentle morning light, that did not increase or fade no matter how much time passed. You also notice in the distance what appears to look like various ruins, spaced out across the land. In the sky you swear you could have saw the words, LAND OF TEMPLES AND CAVES, hanging in the sky. However, there we no words in the sky that you could see when you go and take a second glance, to make sure you weren't seeing anything. And high above you were 15 hovering spirographs, stationed above your hive.

Deciding to walk around a bit, to get a lay of the land. You begin to walk towards the closet cave mouths that you could see. Eventually you get there, taking a peek inside, you see that it leads a large cavern area with ruins inside. Going in to take a look, you find yourself at the entrance of one of the ruined buildings, and step inside. Looking around the interior of the building, it looks like one of those churches that purple-bloods go to. But unlike those churches, this one was completely abandoned. Well maybe not entirely, you think as you hear movement. Taking a stance, you look around, trying to find whatever it is that is moving.

Out of the shadows, a creature leaps out at you. One that has a slight vague resemblance to a penguin but doesn't matter as it swipes at you with its clawed hand. Leaping back, you dodge its attack. And it tries and swipe at you again, you duck under its attack, and deliver a palm thrust to its neck, before sweeping your legs, and knocking them down. As they fall, you deliver another palm thrust at them, aimed at where their nose should be. Soon the creature is on the floor, and you bring up your foot and bring it down on their neck.

As soon as your foot presses down on the creature, it's bursts into some strange objects that float towards you before disappearing just as it is about to make contact with you. Strange, how very curious. Perhaps you should retreat back to your hive and contact the everyone else and see if this is happening to them as well. Perhaps you should have gone and contacted them as soon as you had realized that you were somewhere else actually, instead of giving in to your wanderlust. Oh well, you can't change the past, so there is no use thinking about what you should have done. Exiting the cave, you look towards the sky to locate the spirographs that you saw floating about your hive and use them to make your way back to your hive.

>Next; 


	7. It's magic, you know/ Never believe it's not so

>Next;

Soon everything is no longer all bright and white, looking around you notice stuffed animal you had just repaired had vanished into thin air. Which is really quite peculiar, sounds like a mystery for you and Galie to solve. The case of the missing stuffed animal. Ooo ooo, you could ask Al-Al, you've heard that she has some experience sleuthing and solving mysteries. But you'd need to invite her over to your hive if you want her help on this serious matter currently at hand. But that'd take a long time. Also, Galie doesn't like the idea of having trolls over at your hive.

Well, it looks like it is up to you alone to unravel the mystery of the missing stuffed animal. You began to look around for clues of where it may have gone. But sadly, you don't find any in your hive, perhaps you should look outside then. Heading outside, you are greeted not by the familiar slightly forested area that you and Galie live, not a tree in sight in fact. But instead look upon a strange site. It looked like some sort of mixture between a desert and a swamp. With various building dotting the land. The sky was a nice pink color, very pretty. Like super pretty, almost as pretty as as that one lady that was in that one movie you saw. You're having trouble remembering the title, but you don't remember it being good though.

You notice somethings up in the sky, some really pretty patterns in the sky above your hive. You could stare at them all night even. Out of the corner of your eye, you see some words in the sky, but were only able to catch the last three of them, HODGEPODGE AND MARSHES. But you have the important matter of figuring out what happened to the Skipper Fuzzy, captain of the cuddle cruise. It is a real shame that they didn't get to hear the name you came up for them before they disappeared on you. Leaving you alone with that floating stuffed cholerbear. Gasp, you had nearly forgotten about them, how rude of you to have forgotten about them. You were so worried about the disappearance of the Skipper that you had gone and ignore them. Even though they highly reminded you of Sergeant Fluffy, commander of the fifth hug squad of the cuddle battalion, whom you had only finished putting together the night before. You are a terrible host for leaving them alone, but no longer, you shall greet them and make them feel welcomed. Also, they might have seen or noticed what happened to the Skipper.

Heading back inside, you make your way back to where you started and found your guest. Just floating there, as` if waiting for you to return. You give them a small wave and a smile.

"ah, hello there. i am sorry about ignoring you earlier, i was just so worried over the disappearance of skipper fuzzy, that i had forgotten that you were here." You say to them with a small smile on your face, and your hands clasps together behind you back.

The Sergeant Fluffy look alike tilted their head in a sorta questioning manner.

"oh yes, the skipper is the one i was patching up earlier, they had somehow disappeared from my loving grasps when the world went all weird. on top of that i was worried about how sergeant fluffy had gone and disappeared from mine and galie's sylladex, and galie didn't give me any sort of note of what they did with them." You explain to your guest, with the, nodding alone understanding.

When you mentioned the missing Sergeant though, your guest perked up a bit and began to point to themself, what is it that they are trying to tell you. But what are they trying to tell you.

"oh, what is it? do you know what happened to the sergeant?" You ask, cause them to nod and point at themself once again, "are you trying to say that you're the sergeant?" And in response you got an enthusiastic nod from the apparent Sergeant. "Oh my gosh, i am so sorry. do you want an apology hug, perhaps an apology blanket? or something?"

In response you get a shake of the head from the Sergeant, but then a nod, of course they want the blanket over the hug. As while hugs are nice, they can't last forever like a blanket. With that thought you retried a really fluffy blanket that you had made from your sylladex and gave it to Sergeant Fluffy. However, when you went to wrap the blanket around the Sergeant, it instead was absorbed into them and their appearance changed, and they look like they were sorta made from the blanket. You did not have much time to think about this as soon after Sergeant Fluffy had changed, they had gone and pulled you into a big soft fluffy cholerbear hug with their four arms. And that is much more important than whatever it was that you noticed.

Now while some may say that getting both an apology blanket than a hug may be being greedy, but you were planning on giving the Sergeant both to begin with and merely asked to know which to give them first.

Soon enough the hug comes to an end like all hugs must do. And you suggest the idea you and Sergeant Fluffy have a tea party to celebrate them coming to life. And you get a nod of agreement from them.

As you set up the table for your and the Sergeant's tea party, you think that tonight is going to be a great night.

>Pyro time;

You wake up in a strange place. But it is also familiar, but not too familiar. But not too not familiar. It was though you have been here your entire life, but you really don't remember ever being here. The whole place was this shade of purple that you sort of burns itself into your eyes. Looking around you notice a window out of the room you were in, which looked like a replica of your respiteblock.

Looking out you noticed that you are high above the land in some sort of tower. Looking out on some strangely medieval, but also modern town/city.

You also notice some weird figures wandering about, figures that look sort of like a living silhouette. Eventually you hear a noise below. Looking down you notice some of the figures below point at you and yelling something about night or something. Whatever it is they're talking about, in your acting of looking out the window you notice that more than half of the window and should be falling down towards the pavement below. But you weren't, instead you were floating in the window.

Thinking fucking it, you jump out of the tower and instead of falling like you are supposed to, you were floating in the air. Flying is one word for you were doing. Deciding that this would be a good time to explore this place you fly off in the direction of another tower that you see. 

Arriving there you enter in through the window and notice its sole occupant. A tallish troll with an athletic build, that suggest a good amount of upper body strength, as well as being quite flexible. Under their eyes are heavy bags suggesting that they don't get a lot of sleep. Despite how they look like haven't gone and woke up in over a week. Like yourself, he is dressed in a stupid looking purple outfit. His horns were straighter than yours, with it ending in a shape the sorta resembled a k.

But he looked awfully familiar. Racking your mind, you remember an image that Caecam had once shared. Though Algaea was the one who had taken it on account of the fact that Caecam can't see. But regardless of that, it was a picture of Talbot sleeping at his desk, something that was apparently a rare, but also semi-common occurrence. As Talbot apparently goes long stretches of time without sleeping, which is why him sleeping was rare, but the part of him just passed out somewhere out of his 'coon is something that commonly happens as he just drops sometimes from the lack of sleep. But putting his frankly horrendous sleeping habits aside. As what matters is that he looked exactly like this troll before you right now.

And it occurs to you that this isn't some look alike, but is instead actually Talbot, somehow. And since you woke up in a place that looked like your respiteblock, you assume you are currently standing in a replica of Talbot's respiteblock. And honestly, it's sorta what you'd expect from a guy like him, a mixture of organized as well as being a mess. But that doesn't really matter right now, perhaps you can go and wake Talbot up, since you are alone and have nothing better to do at this moment. So, in what you believe is the most effective method of waking someone up, you began to slap his shit.

But despite how much you slapped this douchebag, he did not awaken, shame. Deciding that there is no point in hanging around here any longer than you need to, you leave this tower and start to head towards another to see who else is here. Entering another tower, you and look at its occupant to figure out who else is here with you. Within is a troll with a large wild mass of hair, you would say she is probably a few inches taller than Talbot, horns included, but without them about the same height. She had the build of someone who does quite the bit of hunting. She was well built, with somewhat defined muscles in her arms and legs. Based on all of that, as well as the scars on her face, and photos you have seen, you know that this is Caecam, of course she was missing her signature coat like Talbot was, and was instead something that sorta looked like a dress, but wasn't a dress. Whatever it is, it seemed stupid and impractical. It also seemed like she is just as asleep as Talbot is, deciding to try and wake up her, in a nicer way than how you did with Talbot, you gently shake her, but to no avail. Eventually you got bored of shaking her. And decided to head to the final tower that you could see. When suddenly jolted awake in your hive. You were lying down on the floor of the level beneath the floor on which Paidii had set up the machines. However, this section was no longer filed with water and was instead as dry as the rest of your hive.

Ignoring slight headache that you had, you did your best to get to the floor above you, which was easier said than done, but eventually you made it. Equipping your fire safety suit for safety reasons and not at all because it makes you feel safe in strange completely unfamiliar environments or situations, not at all. Figuring that since the lower half doesn't seem to be full of water anymore, you retrieve your emergency ladders from your storage area, and deploy them as you make you way to the bottom floor of your hive. Eventually you reach the bottom of your hive and push open the big door you had for easy underwater exits and find yourself in an unfamiliar place. It was a barren wasteland of a place. Filled with raging fires all other the place. Giant walls scattered across the landscape, with pitfalls all over as well. You see hills with buildings on top of them. The sky is a deep orange color, and you notice fifteen spirographs floating in the air above your hive. For a moment you swear you saw the words, LAND OF TRAPS AND BLAZE in the sky, but they were no longer there after you went and rubbed your eyes and looked again to make sure you weren't imagining it.

You your reaction to the sight that you are currently beholding was simple in a manner of speaking. You're glad that you have your fire safety suit on. Because of all the fire of course, not at all because there is a chance that without the comfortable and familiar weight of the suit, you might have gone and start having a slight minor anxiety attack, not in the slightest. Actually, you still might have one if you are being completely honest, and you really hope that you won't because this is seriously not the time or the place to have one, oh fuck, it's harder to breathe, and you can feel your bloodpusher racing. Fuck you need to sit down; you think as you stumble back inside towards a chair that you had. As you sit down you focus on your breathing and try to calm down the best you can. Fuck.


	8. Everybody else in, we are departing for mayhem soon

You come to in your garden, and everything is the same as before you had gone and planted that seed. Nothing out of place at all. Which is weird considering the number of vines and other such plants that had sprouted out of the ground from the seed. So, you would expect there to be at least one thing out of place, but nope nothing was.

Anyways, that isn't that important, what is important now that everything isn't silent anymore, which is something you really don't like at all. As you are of the opinion that there should always be something going on and making even a little bit of noise. The world just doesn't seem right if everything is still and silent, like there isn't any life at all, and that you are all alone in the state known of existence. But regardless of that and the existential crisis you might or might have not been teetering on the edge of having, the world is no longer silent at all, in fact, it is a bit louder than you remember it being before.

Deciding that is something you need to investigate; you head out from your garden and outside. Stepping out your front door you notice that you and your hive were no longer in the meadow that you had lived. In its place was a wide landscape had been replaced by an array of hills and rivers. You could hear the rushing water of the rivers as though you were right next to them. As the sounds that they made echoed across this whole new strange place that you found yourself in. The sky is a dark green color not too unlike the shade of green that you would associate with jades. Above your hive, hovering in the sky, are 15 or so spirograph looking patterns. And for a brief moment you see the words LAND OF ECHOES AND RIVERS in the sky, before they disappeared.

Feeling a sense of wonder and awe, you just stand in the doorway for a while, looking out on the world. After standing there for a quite a while, you finally decide to head back inside and see how everyone else is doing.

>Character Change;

Soon enough everything returns to normal. As you can now hear the room again, and it sounds like it did before. But while the room you are currently in sounds right, that doesn't mean everything else sounds right. Faintly you hear something that isn't what you'd normally hear. And you have a policy for how you deal with things that are out of the ordinary. Which is to confront it with a shotgun in hand and trigger finger at the ready.

Climbing up the stairs that lead to the ground level of your hive, the faint sound you heard downstairs got loader, the closer to your front door that you get, the louder the sound gets. Eventually you are at your front door, and you open it. Now if you were some kind of normie, you would be able to see whatever it is that is that is the cause of the noise you are currently hearing. But since you can't do that you got to figure out what's going on with your ears.

Now that you are outside where the noise is coming from, you can clearly hear it. It is a beautiful melody that plays out over the course of several seconds, then it is interrupted by a sharp horrible noise that makes you grit your teeth a bit. And after a second or two, the melody returns. And this cycle continues, and by the sound of it, it is a single tune that plays out, with bits and pieces of it missing. And when the song comes to its end, it loops back to the beginning of the melody.

Letting out a click, and based on the echo you heard back, you can tell you are still in a forest, however some of the trees seem sort of broken, and they also seem to be the source of the horrible noise in the melody that this forest seems to be playing. 

Now if you weren't blind, you would notice that the sky is a nice dark blue color. And the fifteen spirographs above your hive. As well as what might or might not have been the words LAND OF BABEL AND TEMPO in the sky. And that you are in the middle of a vast forest, and in the trees were music note. But you are blind, so you are not able to see or appreciate the world that you had found yourself in. You might have heard the words that may or may not have been in the sky, whispered on the nonexistent wind.

Walking out into the strange wood, you decided to do a bit of wandering to get a lay of the land. And to try and get used to the noise that the forest produces, so that it doesn't go and interfere with your echolocation much.

During your wandering you hear something come up from behind you. Spinning around you pull out your shotgun and unload a buckshot in the direction of the sound you heard. You hear the shot make contact with something, and whatever it is you shot let out something of a yelp. You than heard them leap at you and could hear their arm moving in a manner to probably attack you. You manage you dodge, despite only having the sound of them moving to go off of. You slam the butt of your shotgun into the creature, before doing a slight spin as you load a slugshot in, so that you end up with the muzzle of your shotgun against what you presume to be the head of the creature. And you pull the trigger. Killing it. They went down really easily. You've hunted beast that were harder to kill than that.

Well, you thirst for blood has been quenched for the time being, you return to your hive to stock back up on ammo and other supplies you might need while out and about.

>Character change, once again;

Reality comes back into focus, and the metaphorical curtain that had previously closed opens once more. You find yourself still in the same place you where before you had put that puzzle box together, but there is something that seemed different about your hive. As it currently seems a bit more misty/foggy than it usually is. Deciding to figure out the reasoning for why this might be, you set off to find what may be the cause of this change in your hive.

After a long while of looking around your hive for what may be the cause and finding none. You make your way outside and discover that you are no longer next to the large bay that you have spent your entire life living next to. But instead the area around you have been replaced by a stretch of land as far as the eye could see. With the occasional outline of a building popping up every once in a while. But what could be considered the main feature of this place was the dense fog that covered the land. Making it difficult to really see anything. And since it made it hard to see things, you weren't able to make out the spirographs above your hive. Nor the words in the sky that read out LAND OF FOG AND FROGS, nor were you able to make out more than the outline of a volcano. One that had been once been submerged in the bay near your hive. But you weren't able to see any of that at this moment in time as you were more focus on figuring out what to do next.

>Legendary three character swap combo;

The universe decides to focus back in on you again, leaving you in your hive with the three main machines for this game. Alone with your rad snake friend, as well as this weird looking fellow that seemed to be made out of slime. Figuring that it would be a good idea to first make sure everything is alright. You give you hive a quick walk through and found nothing off. So, you head outside to check how things are out there. But instead of the familiar set of the area you live, it has been replaced with somewhere new.

It was a mostly flat landscape, dotted with large identical obelisks, that had holes carved in them. The sky was a light dark grey, dotted with dark gray clouds, all of which were pouring rain, that strangely dissipated before it touched the ground. In the sky above you hive were fifteen spirographs. You also saw the words LAND OF TONES AND RAIN in the sky before they vanished before your eyes like they were never there.

Deciding that it would be a good idea to head back in and find one of your toys to de-stress. Since you don't have any in your sylladex after throwing you slime in the orb. Eventually you manage to find one of your squeeze balls in the same room where the machines, the snake, and that slime figure are. You spend a few minutes playing with it, before you put it away in your sylladex. You then wave at the slime being to get their attention and do you best to communicate the question of, what are they, to them. But all you get in response is a confused look. So, you try again, once again only getting a confused look. Right as you were about to try again, your mysterious snake friend hiss at the slimely being. And they gain a look of understanding.

Turning back to you they introduce themself as slimesprite, and they are to be your guide to the game. You ask when that means exactly. They tell you that simply that they will provide wisdom and knowledge if you ever need it. And told you upfront, that they're gonna be vague and mysterious with they will tell you, because there are rule about what they can say apparently.


	9. Insane in the membrane

  
ct: ok... so is anyone else in a different place than they were previously... or is that just a me thing...   
CA: sSs DON'T START FEELING TOO SPECIAL, CAUSE IT ISN'T JUST YOU sSs   
sm: (] oh dear. is everyone also somewhere differen7 as well [)   
Aa: yeeaah iit iis thee saamee heeree foor mee my faaiir boodiieed aamiigoos   
sm: (] ocye7e dear [)   
Aa: yeeaah   
sm: (] i would posi7ively love i7 if you didn'7 use 7ha7 phrase 7o refer 7o me [)   
Aa: aapooloogiizees my siisteer froom anootheer sluurry diidn't meeaan aanythiing by iit   
sm: (] i7's fine [)   
MM: @->-- CAN WE NOT TALKED ABOUT SLURRIES, LIKE AT ALL. I WOULD VERY MUCH APPRECIATE THAT.   
AT: pUtting that saide, yeah i Am no loner in my nice cozy forset   
Dm: 15 [ It does look as though that case for everyone is. that they are now in a new and strange place]   
ct: seriously... what kind of game is this... shattering the fabric of reality...   
CA: sSs YOU KNOW THAT IS A REAL GOOD QUESTION. AND HERE IS A BETTER ONE. WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU FIND THIS ONE TALBOT? SEEING AS YOU ARE THE ONE WHO WENT AND DISTRIBUTED THE DOWNLOAD sSs   
ct: well... i heard about it from ocyete... & get my copy of it from them... & went on to share it w/ the rest of you... so if you want answers on the origin of this... game... you better ask them... in fact i'll do that for you... ocyete... where did you happen to find this game...   
Aa: aaaah maan yoouu haad too aask thaat diiffiicuult quueestiioon oouut oof noowheeree   
Aa: weell woouuld yoouu beeliieevee mee iif ii saaiid aa seerpeent shooweed iit too mee   
CA: sSs A SERPENT. SERIOUSLY THAT IS THE EXPLANATION YOU ARE GOING TO GO WITH sSs   
Aa: weell yeeaah caauusee iit's thee truuth oof thee maatteer   
Aa: thiis fuunky liil snaakee thaat liikees too haang oouut iin my hiivee oonee daay shooweed uup wiith thiis boox thaat coontaaiineed thiis diisk   
Aa: soo ii weent aand puut iit iin my coompuuteer aand oon iit waas thee fiilees foor thee gaamee   
Aa: aand theen seent theem too taalboot caauusee hee seeeemeed liikee thee soortaa guuy too knoow aboouut thiis soortaa stuuff   
ct: you forget to mention the part about the snake... you literally just message me... asking if i knew anything about coding... & when i said yes... you sent the files to me and said something along the lines of... could you look over this & tell me what sort of files these are...   
ct: then didn't give me any context for where or how you found it...   
Aa: weell thaat waasn't iimpoortaant aat thaat thee tiimee waas iit noor diid yoouu aask   
ct: i mean fair...   
AT: tAlbot did your eally not ask them where they gout it from and just looked at some mysterious code cause you ere asked with no questions   
ct: well... when you put it like that... i look like some sort of fool... but in my defense... the code was simply so atrocious... that i forget to ask for any details...   
sm: (] oh. wha7 do you mean by 7ha7 [)   
ct: let me just paste like two samples of it... like whomever coded this was high off their ass while doing so... like what the fuck were they on & where can i get some... anyways...   
ct: CREATE player.X.information FOR X TIME; WHERE X IS player.number   
ct: FOR (VALUE X; UNTIL X IS player.number; DECREASE player.number){ ASSIGN player.X.information TO subsystem.players.X}   
ct: CREATE subsystem.players   
ct: RESTORE player.number TO player.X   
ct: GENERATE player.information FROM player(NAME, SIGN, PERSONALITY, HEIGHT, AGE, CILANTRO, GENDER, LIMBS)   
ct: like seriously... it uses an object systems that hasn't even been declared or generated yet... like no... you can't do that... it also manages to reassign a variable back to its original value despite it not being stored anywhere... & trust me... i looked...   
ct: it took me an entire week to figure out what this even was...   
AT: aNd when did you starte to make anysense of thsi   
ct: i believe right after i chug some of my special stay awake blend... but before i message you to tell you that i have seen the face of god... & called them a motherfucker...   
AT: oH yeah i Remember that. yOu didn't respone for liek 5 hours and when you did it was to aks why don't snake have arms   
ct: at the time i was legitimately curious... but yeah... i was only about to make enough sense of it to be able to tell it was code for a game... like a good 98% of it was unreadable... oh right the other sample of code...   
ct: (~~~~====+++///()()())~-=++~[<<\//\>>]   
ct: (╘ûT♠+Ω♦◘§--~∞~++|/\\\//\§█§\//\\\/|▄▀≈░)   
CA: sSs WHAT THE FUCK sSs   
ct: yeah.. apparently it's uses a mixture of readable text & symbols... uses the symbols a lot... more so than the text... so making section of just symbols... or a mixture unreadable b/c i have no idea what they're supposed to mean..   
CA: sSs ANYWAYS PUTTING THAT MESS ASIDE, WE DON'T HAVE ANY ORIGIN BEYOND THAT OCYETE FOUND IT IN A BOX, THAT A SNAKE BROUGHT THEM sSs   
Dm: 16 [That is indeed the case. it would seem]   
\-- knightlyGalavanter responded to memo --   
Kg: hello everyone. i'm sorry for not talking to you guys sooner after i woke up. but i had urgent matters to attend to.   
sm: (] oh a7hoos dear. how nice i7 is 7o see you [)   
AT: aNd so the most incoonect one of us all has arrived, owh is the cinnamon rill dong   
Kg: i'm doing just great. still confused on why you call me a cinnamon roll, but great. i just had a tea party with sergeant fluffy.   
Aa: chiill geettiing yoouur paarty oon wiith aan iinaaniimaatee stuuffeed aaniimaal ii caan diig thaat   
Kg: oh no, the sergeant is very much alive right now.   
sm: (] a7hoos. dear. wha7ever do you mean by 7ha7 [)   
Kg: oh it is quite simple. sergeant fluffy is no longer a simple stuffed animal, for now they have this sorta ghostly body. but they are still very fluffy, especially after i gave them that blanket. which they then sorta absorbed.   
ct: you know... that reminds me of the thing that i saw... that had a vacuum for a head... or to be more precise... the vacuum i threw at the flashing ball of annoyance...   
Aa: ooh yoouu meeaan yoouur spriitee   
Aa: yeeaah theey aaree flaashy fuuckeers wheen theey coomee oouut oof thee cruuxtruudeer   
CA: sSs I'M SORRY THE WHAT sSs   
Aa: thee cruuxtruudeer yoouu knoow thee fiirst piieecee oof maachiineery yoouu uuseed   
Aa: waas ii thee oonly oonee whoo reeaad whaat theey weeree caalleed   
CA: sSs WHAT IS THIS CONCEPT CALLED READING, THAT YOU SPEAK OF sSs   
ct: i mean... i might have read them... just not process it...   
AT: bOld of you to assume i Xan rwad   
sm: (] i may have gone and. well. overlooked wha7 7hey were called [)   
MM: @->-- YOU KNOW THAT I JUST PLACED THEM WITHOUT THINKING.   
Dm: 17 [It pains me to say this. but I did not read what they were called either. I was in a bit of a hurry to get it done]   
Aa: /:3   
Kg: umm. what are you guys talking about?   
Aa: doo noot woorry aaboouut iit   
Aa: yoouu aaree gooood coonsiideeriing thaat waas yoouur coouunteerpaart thaat deeplooyeed thee stuuff   
Kg: ah, ok then.   
ct: you ever think that our ancestors' ghosts are disappointed in us...   
CA: sSs UNLIKELY, SEEING AS I HIGHLY DOUBT THAT ANY OF US ARE DESCENDED FROM ANYONE THAT WASN'T SOME SORT OF FUCK UP sSs   
ct: fair enough.. so back to the topic of sprites... i guess...   
ct: the fuck are they...   
Aa: theey'ree suuppooseed too guuiidee yoouu iin thiis craazy gaamee   
ct: & you know this how...   
Aa: by taalkiing wiith theem oof coouursee   
ct: of course... should have been obvious...   
AT: sO what, they're just supposed to tell su about this weird ass gaem and thsu explain all teh secerts of the universe to us as well   
Aa: weell sliimeespriitee waas reeaal vaaguuee aaboouut stuuff aand shiit   
CA: sSs SO BASICALLY, THEY'RE NOT GONNA TELL US SHIT sSs   
Aa: yeeaah baasiicaally   
CA: sSs FUCK THEM sSs   
MM: @->-- ANYWAYS, SINCE THAT IS COVERED. HOW IS EVERYBODY DOING?


	10. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

>Time to engage in shenanigans;

You go to return to observing that events that are currently unfolding from the perspective of one of the teenage players of the game that, you the reader know, has brought about the end of the world and general universe that the players of this game had inhabited. Of course, the players of the game don't know this at this moment in time. But regardless of that, you notice that you haven't swapped to one of the players, but are instead currently in some sort of strange meta-narrative area, you notice s figure hunched over their laptop, typing out something you cannot quite read. However, if you could read it you would know that they are in the midst of typing out this whole section, in which describes what you are currently doing. However, describing that would be highly convoluted and the figure at the desk doesn't have the time for that, and thus you can't actually read what is being typed.

Of course, the figure was aware of you being there, but the figure doesn't want you here, as while they would love to indulge in this sort of meta shenanigans, they also really don't want to at all. They're not even sure why this section is happening in the first place regardless of the reason for why this happened in the first place. But they have the power to end it, so they do.

>The reader is forcibly removed from this space and ejected back into someone else's perspective.

>Sleepy boi time.

Well that memo was helpful, yet simultaneously unhelpful. Sure, it was interesting to learn where everyone else had ended up. But that really wouldn't be much help with where he had been relocated to. You load up the menu of the things that you can deploy to get an idea of what it is that you can go and do. You see that there are quite a lot of new things that you can deploy now. However, most of them seem to cost material that you don't appear to have access to. Of the few things you can deploy, one of them catches your eye, a disk for a program called GristTorrent. You go and deploy it right on top of Caecam's desk and begin to message her.

>Let's do this from her perspective in fact;

You are back at you hive and have just finished conversing with everyone else of the memo. It was mainly trading notes on what you have experienced and seen, well in your case heard, so far. As well as some general talk about how people are doing and such. You were stocking up on ammo and other various supplies for you take when you go back out to explore, when you hear the sound of something appearing and plopping down on your desk. And not even a moment later, you hear your husktop let out the sound it makes to notify you whenever you get a message.

ct: hey... so i just placed a disk on your desk... & i has hoping if you could load it up into your computer... & if possible... send the files contained on it to me..  
AT: aNy readon for wht i Shulde do this  
ct: b/c if you do... i can go through it... & figure out what it can do... instead of hovering over your shoulder w/ my view... & guiding you through the whole thing so that i can figure it out...  
AT: wHy tAlbot, have you no sense of shame or modesty. oR even a trace of respect for a lady's privacy  
ct: we already had this conversation you know... how about this for a reason... i'm your favorite moirail...  
AT: hMmmm... nOw that might have worked if aLgaea didn't exist  
ct: you know what... that's fair... alright... i can't think of a reason for why you should do this that won't sound like i'm trying to guilt trip you... or something...  
AT: hMmmm, than i Shall take pitty upon you and try  
ct: thanks...

With that you pick up the disk that Talbot had set on your desk and put it into your computer and loaded it up. You navigate to where you believe the icon for the disk would be. Went and copied the files contained on it and send them over to Talbot over the message client.

AT: tHere  
ct: thanks...  
ct: so i got it running over on my end... you can do whatever you want w/ that disk...  
AT: mIns sheding some light on what this is exactly  
ct: oh yeah... so the disk was for the program... gristtorrent... which considering what torrenting is... & that grist is what the material that the game uses for stuff.. oh yeah i used about half of the build grist that you had to deploy that disk...  
AT: 2:<  
ct: anyways... it was worth it... as i can just click on this section under althaf... that represents his amount of build grist... start this process... & boom... i am moving the ridiculous amount of build grist he has... over to me...  
AT: >:0  
AT: tAlbot, i Expected better than that from you. tAking thst whixh you haven't done anything for  
ct: & althaf has... i would put an emoticon w/ a raised eyebrow if i could be bothered to figure out how to display that... if it makes you feel better i just started a process to send over the build grist to you... to replace the grist i used to make the disk...  
AT: yEs, i Do believe i Could turn a deaf ear to your misdeads  
ct: but as i would be saying... this is going to let me go & move about the resources that we all have... i figure that it would make sense for us to share the wealth & such... since this is a co-op game... not comp...  
ct: i'm going to spend some time to see if i can set up a process... or program... or a macro or something... that would go about & automatically splits everything between us all... or i'd just go about it manually...  
AT: gOod luck with that, i'M foing to go exploring and ahit  
ct: have fun w/ that...

With that conversation over and done with. You finish gathering up your supplies and head out into the unknown that surrounds your hive once more. You have every shotgun that you own now properly stored in your strife deck, as well as a vast amount of ammo in your sylladex. You're ready to see this new world you are exploring, and kick ass. And you're blind, really, you're just ready to go about and kick some ass.

You wonder through the new woods that surround your hive, it doesn't feel that much different from when you walked around the woods that had surround your hive before, the main difference is the noise, as before it was quite, with only the occasional sound of something moving. But here there is a constant song playing in the background, one that would interfere with your echolocation, if you had not taken the time earlier to walk around and get used to this new background noise.

Not much happens whilst you are wandering about, you do hear the sounds of something moving around in the trees every once in a while, as if something was following you. This idea is also supported by the fact that you have felt as though someone, or something has been watching you for a little while. But it hasn't made any sort of movement towards you, at least in any sort of manner that would suggest they're planning to attack you. It's more like they're observing you since you're something new and different than what it probably usually in here, so you're find just leaving whatever it is too its own devices. You might call out to them later if it starts getting annoying, but it's fine for now.

Now on the other hand, you just heard something else moving around, that definitely doesn't sound friendly. As well as much bigger than what you had fought previously. Excellent, there couldn't be a better timing, as you thirst for blood. And that fight from earlier had could only slake that thirst for so long. Perhaps, this one would be much better.

And as if on cue, you hear the large whatever it is, rushing towards you from behind you. Quickly, you take out an automatic shotgun that had been fully loaded with slugs before you left. And take aim in the direction you hear the large creature rushing towards you from. And as soon as you hear that it is close enough, you pull the trigger on your gun, and let lose a barrage onto your prey. Over the sound of your shotgun firing over and over again, as you hold down the trigger, you can hear your shots impact what you presume to be the enemy that was making its way towards you. As well as the fact that it seems that whatever it was that was heading towards you had stopped rushing towards you as soon as it was hit by the first slug.

Eventually, your shotgun runs out of ammo, as it isn't some sort of magical gun with an infinite amount of ammo. As soon as the creature realizes that you are no longer firing on it, it attacks, you hear a big arm moving right at you. And you being the process of dodging backwards to avoid it. But however, it seems as though you were too slow to do so, as you feel it's arm hit you right in your side, that throws you off your feet and sailing through the air. You end up slamming right into a tree and fuck does that hurt.

You manage to pick yourself up and replace the shotgun that you had out with a different one from your strife deck. It's another automatic shotgun, but this one has been loaded with buckshots rather than slugs.

You take aim where you can hear your opponent moving slowly towards you and let lose volley after volley of buckshot at them. You can hear them slowing down as you unleash shot after shot into them. Eventually coming to a stop, entirely. Seems like you managed to kill it. Wasn't that difficult compared to some other beasts you have hunted, but it was tougher than the one that you had fought earlier. And hear at that, seems like you went up a rung on your echeladder as a result of that fight, neat. You have gone from SHARPSHOOTING PRINCESS to SAILOR GUN. Honestly, all the rungs on your echeladder so far have had stupid or ridiculous names. Like seriously what the fuck does ALLY OF GUNSTICE even mean. But anyways, you digress.

You are going to have some bruises from this. But, apart from that, you're pretty sure that you're gonna be fine.

You dust yourself off a little, before sitting down on the ground, leaning back against a tree, and begun the process of reloading the two shotguns that you had used in that fight. Which is simply enough considering how many times you have gone through this process before. It is when you had gone and stored the shotgun you had just finished reloading, that you hear a sound coming towards you. It doesn't sound like either of the two creatures you had fought since coming here. But more like whatever it is that had been following you from the trees. The sound of its approach isn't aggressive like the creature you just fought, it sounds rather cautious. It also have that sound to it, that footsteps and such usually have when they're meant to be obviously, so to let whatever it is that's being approached, that they're being approached, so to not surprise the one that is being approached. Putting that together with the lack of aggression in the approach, it's becomes obvious that whatever had been observing you, has finally decided to come out and met you face to face, possibly in an attempt to help you. And if they try to attack you, it's not like you are defenseless without a shotgun in hand, nor are all of the shotguns in your strife deck out of ammo. So, you should be fine, if it comes to another fight.

Soon enough, you hear the thing that had been following and observing you, came to be in front of you. Based off of it's sound, it's probably about half the size of you at most. After a minute of just sitting in front of you silently, you let out a hum, to let them know that you know they're there. Right afterwards, you hear them move closer to you. And that's when you feel something drop onto your lap.

Moving your arm towards you lap, you feel out whatever it is that's in your lap. It's soft, and feels like a head, so it's probably a head. And considering the sound they are making; it is probably their head. So, it seems as though you have a new friend, and that they have decided to lay their head in your lap. While you would had preferred some sort of warning beforehand, but this is fine. You give their head a bit of a pet, getting a purr from them. Seems like they're some sort purrbeast. Not the worst company you could have.

You take out the automatic shotgun that you had emptied, and go about reloading it, taking care not to bump or hit your new friend during the process.

When you took out your shotgun, it seems as though you friend was a bit startled, but soon after you had begun to reload it, they calmed down and settled into your lap more than before. What an interesting turn of events this is, you were not expecting to end up emptying two whole shotguns on a single enemy, nor were you expecting to end up with some mysterious purrbeast as a friend. But that's how life is you guess.


	11. [They] blinded me with science; Alchemy science.

You eventually recover from whatever it was that you just had, as you are not entirely sure what you would classify it as. Thankfully you found something to distract you, as that memo was helpful in allowing yourself to slip back into being your normal confident self. But the memo has slowed down to a crawl, as it seems as everyone else has decided to investigate and explore. So, you might as well go and do that too.

But first you decided to look over the entire server program first, so that you can see what it is that you can do with it.

Taking a look over Avasti's hive, as you browse through the various menus that you could interact with and such. You notice that is a symbol by your cursor, indicating that you could interact with Avasti's hive in some manner. You click your mouse, and then move it. And as you do, you see that you have just built some stairs onto Avasti's hive. Looking through the menu you notice that that barely made a dent in the amount of build grist that he has, so you proceed to build upon his hive even more so, until you manage to reach the first of many spirographs that are floating above his hive. Hopefully that'll be helpful in some way.

As you were doing that, you notice that there the amount of grist that Avasti has is changing beyond the building you have done. It isn't drastically changing, so it isn't that worrying. In fact, some of them are actually increasing. With this newfound grist you are now able to deploy this new device that is labeled as a Punch Designix, and place it Right next to the Totem Lathe, since that's where there was room. You also managed to deploy this one large thing called a Jumper Block Extension. Looks like it has to be deployed right next to the Alchemiter. While some might say that it cost quite a bit of build grist, when compared to the frankly ridiculous amount that Avasti has, doesn't really matter at all. There is also something called a Punch Card Shunt, and it looks like it goes right onto the big thing you just deployed and attached to the Alchemiter. Wonder what that's for.

You decide to message Avasti, so that instead of you just dicking around with shit that you have no idea does what, you can get him to figure this shit out while you dick around with shit.

\-- charismaticArsonist started trolling destructiveMarksman --

CA: sSs YO, AVASTI. THOUGHT IT WOULD MAKE SENSE TO ACTUALLY MESSAGE YOU sSs   
CA: sSs SEEING AS I AM YOUR SERVER PLAYER IN THIS FUCKED UP GAME WE ARE PLAYING sSs   
Dm: 1 [Indeed. that does make sense. I have heard some noise and have seen some new devices]   
Dm: 2 [I assume that this is your doing]   
CA: sSs YEAH, I WAS BORED AND DECIDED TO DEPLOY SOME STUFF sSs   
Dm: 3 [So to slake your boredom. you went and deployed some new pieces of machinery in my hive. Do you happen to know what they do]   
CA: sSs NO sSs   
Dm: 4 [So you deployed them with no clue as to what they do]   
CA: sSs NO, I MEAN YES. I DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY DO. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL I DID sSs   
CA: sSs EVER PLAYED THE SIMS? WELL THAT DOESN'T MATTER, SIMPLY PUT I BUILT UP YOUR HIVE. IT'S LIKE IT REACHES THE FIRST SPIROGRAPH ABOVE YOUR HIVE sSs   
Dm: 5 [I'm sorry. Did you just say that you built up my hive. What does that even mean]   
CA: sSs IT MEANS THAT YOUR HIVE I NOW EVER BIGGER NOW, AND YOU LATEST ADDITION HAS BEEN BEAUTIFULLY DESIGNED BY YOURS TRULY sSs   
Dm: 6 [Oh dear]   
CA: sSs ANYWAYS, I FIGURED THAT IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA IF YOU COULD GO ABOUT FIGURING OUT WHAT THE FUCK THESE THINGS DO sSs   
Dm: 7 [And what shall you being doing]   
CA: sSs MORE FUCKING AROUND WITH THE SERVER PROGRAM sSs   
Dm: 8 [Of course]<   
CA: sSs BY THE WAY. THE THING WITH THE KEYBOARD IS CALLED A PUNCH DESIGNIX, THE BIG THING IS A JUMPER BLOCK EXTENDER, AND THE THING ON IT IS A PUNCH CARD SHUNT. HAVE FUN sSs

>Let's move over to Avasti's pov for this;

You had just finished up a conversation with Jyotis concerning the new machines. Thankfully they told you what the things they had placed were called. So that is helpful. Taking a look at the Punch Designix, you notice a diagram on it. What looks like a captchalogue card being flipped, and the information on it being typed into the machine. After which a captchalogue card is inserted into the machine. Hmm, seems simple enough. Let's go with something simple. You take the card that contains your palmhusk and input the code on the back into the Punch Designix. After wards you insert it into the machine. It lets out a beep, and it seems that the card has been punched. Interesting.

You go to reinsert the card back into your sylladex, but it seems that you can no longer use this card as a part of it. And you can no longer retrieve your palmhusk. Oh dear, oh dear. You look at the punched card trying to figure out what to do, when you realize that it resembles the card you had inserted into the totem lathe previously. You get a new totem from the cruxtruder, place it on the totem lathe and insert the card that had once been used to hold your palmhusk. And you carve a new totem. You place the newly card totem on the Alchemiter, and while it costs you some grist. You managed to get a new palmhusk. That is very interesting.

Since one of the new things was called a punch card shunt, perhaps you could place a punched card in there and do something with it. Placing the card that was punched with the code for your palmhusk into it. You see that the Alchemiter changes shape. Now there is a small touch screen on the side of it. You interact with it and notice that it really doesn't do anything. Taking out the card, you look around for something else. You decide to see if you can store the Punch Designix, and you were able to.

You take note of its code and place it back down. Now you punch in the code you took note of, insert an empty card you have. And place this new punched card into the punch card shunt. The Alchemiter transforms once again. And now it includes a built in Punch Designix, that's convenient. Now you don't have to walk the 5 feet that it would take for you to punch a card.

You then notice a few more punch card shunts has been placed. Thanks, Jyotis, now you can modify the Alchemiter even more than before. You store the old Punch Designix away and use it to punch out the code for an empty captchalogue card, so you can make more of them. Since you are likely going to be going through them by punching them codes into them. You go and store both the Cruxtruder and the Totem Lathe. And put their codes into their cards and insert them into two different free shunts. And now you Alchemiter has a a built in Totem Lathe, as well as Cruxtruder, so now this is a now stop shop for all your Alchemiter needs. You hear a thud behind you and turn around to see a new device on the ground.

Shrugging, you go and store it in your sylladex, and go through the process of punching it's code into it, and placing it into a shunt. You look at the Alchemiter to see what has changed, and it seems that there has been a changed to the built-in Totem Lathe and Cruxtruder mixture. You insert your palm husk card into the slot for them, and see that it now projects a hologram of a carved totem, that you can used to create items, rather than having to keep using the Cruxtruder to get totems that you are probably only going to use the once.

Feeling up for some experimenting, you go and get one of your computers, to go through the process of adding it to the Alchemiter. Once you had inserted it, there was now a screen attached to the built-in Punch Designix, the keyboard had undergone an upgrade, looking to be built into the machine, rather than being something that was just attached to it. You also notice that there is a now some wiring that goes from the the card punching slot, over to the card insert slot of the totem lathe set up. Moving over to the screen, you navigate around the screen and find that you can insert several codes at once and combine them into new codes. Which is apparently something that you could have done. Meaning that this whole set up is much more useful than you thought it was at first, not being just a method of duplicating objects, but also combining them into new ones.

Testing it out you input the code for a blank captchalogue card and see that there is now a hologram of a carved totem being projected onto the Alchemiter totem scanner part. Looking back at the screen you see a checkbox with the words, preview, next to it. Clicking the checkbox, you now see that there is a holographic preview of a blank card on the Alchemiter's platform. There is a button labeled, alchemize, that you assume will create the object that the inputted code combination represents. There is also a display that shows how much grist making this object will cost. That is very convenient indeed.

Since you've figure out the basics of this system of alchemy, or perhaps you had just skipped right by the basics and went straight to something advance that simplifies the whole process. Regardless of that, you think it's time for you to start messing around and seeing what you can do. You enter the code for your glasses, as well as the code for your palmhusk. First you combine them using the AND combine first and received a pair of husk-glasses. Then you do it using the OR combine, getting the palm-glasses.

Inspecting the husk-glasses, you notice that they are fully functioning glasses that also work as a palmhusk. On the other hand, the palm-glasses, were in the shape of your palmhusk, but work as glasses, instead of a palmhusk, or both. So basically useless. But it teaches you a valuable lesson on what the difference between AND combine, and OR combine. Seems that the first will give you something that works as both of it's components, while the second will give you one of the functions, but the form of the other.

You retrieve the code for the machine that gave the Alchemiter it's holographic ability, and looked at the two possible outcomes, and using the AND combine once more, you replace your husk-glasses, with the holo-lens. Which is basically the same as the husk-glasses, just that it has a holographic interface that doesn't take up your entire vision.

You could continue with this, but you don't have anything else in mind that you could alchemize together. So you could go and explore, or you could do and write down the steps you took to create this set up for your Alchemiter, and share it with everyone else so that they don't have to go through the whole shebang of punching the correct cards, or having to deploy more than they need to. Yes, that is what you are going to do. You'll share it later on the memo once you're done typing it out. You can always explore later; you need to get this down while it's fresh in your mind.


	12. Techno-wizardry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> weird how it took me over a month to finally type this chapter and get it out. probably cause i was writing this as a way of procrastinating. but i ran out of things to procrastinate doing, leaving me to procrastinating writing any more.  
it's a multi-layered cycle of procrastination.

>Let's go back to talbot for a second;

You've been messing around with GristTorrent for a while now and have gotten the hang of it... Mostly. You know how to send and torrent grist to and from the others. But you haven't been able to figure out set up an equalizer for all of this grist within the program itself yet. You've noticed that everyone has a max grist cap, and that it differs between each of you. You've also found this section called the grist gutter, and that it is where overflow grist goes, and that it will apparently distribute the grist in it to the players over time. Which you think should be useful. Honestly, this would all be much easier if you could set up another cache for the grist to rest in before you go about and start the distribution of it.

Then it smacks you in the face, there is an interesting thing about Athoos' and Paagal's grist caches. There is one for each of them, but they are both empty. However, there is one that that has been labeled as Paidii, which does have grist in it, about the amount that you say that would be the combined amount that what you believe the two of them should have. Perhaps if you could get GristTorrent downloaded on their computer and access it. You could go about using them for storage and distribution of grist. Yes, that should work.

Now usually that would be difficult to do, since you would need physical access to their computer. However there should be a backdoor on their computer that was set up and installed on there when they went and downloaded the files for this game from you, one that will let your access it remotely from comfort of your own hive. And it wasn't just on their computer, there should be one installed on everyone else's computer as well. One might feel even the slightest bit of guilt or remorse for doing such a thing without anyone's knowledge or permission, but not you. Not because you didn't respect their privacy, as you do, even if that respect for their privacy is barely existent. But because you thought that perhaps that being able to access their computers would be a potential boon in for this game. And look at this, this is something that benefits from that, which will benefit the group, so you doubt that if the others learn they're be too upset about it.

Anyways, you go about connecting to the Paidii computer and install GristTorrent on their computer. Actually, you connect to everyone's computer and go about the downloading of GristTorrent onto them. With as much stealth as you can muster, of course, wouldn't want them to the download mid-install. Thinking about it, you could use this to go about and send grist between everyone with having to use a buffer cache. Also, it would seem that any grist sent into Athoos' or Paagal's separate cache is automatically sent to their combined one. With that in mind, you begin transferring grist between the accounts. It doesn't take as long as you would think, due to the power of multiple servers and devices working together in tandem.

While you were overseeing the transference of grist, you notice that Avasti had sent a document into the group memo, something about upgrading the Alchemiter to make it more user friendly and such. Looks interesting. And would probably be a good idea to go about and upgrade your's and Caecam's Alchemiters sooner than later and save yourself the headache of doing it later.

With your connection to Althaf's computer you are able to deploy the Punch Designix for yourself as well as the Jumper Block Extender and several Punch Card Shunts. And go about the action of upgrading your Alchemiter with Avasti's instruction. It's a good thing that you've been evening out the amount of grist everyone has, or else you wouldn't have been able to afford to deploy that which you have deployed for yourself. With that done, you go about install the needed devices onto Caecam's Alchemiter. And with very much effort and care on your part, mange to get some blank cards and punch them to upgrade Caecam's Alchemiter. It was much more difficult than you thought it would be.

After you finished with all of that, you start to build up her hive up to the first spirograph above it. That's probably gonna be something helpful. And looking at the the current amount of build grist that is left between the lot of ya, you should possibly be able to make it to the second spirograph. And since you can, you might as well do so. Two down, about thirteen more to go. In fact, you go back to accessing Althaf's computer and manage to build your hive up to the second thing above your hive. You would have attempted to go to the third, but while put together everyone has a ridiculously large amount of grist, you don't want to horde all of it for yourself.

You should probably shoot Caecam a message that you've gone and upgraded her Alchemiter, as well as her hive. 

>Welp, looks like it's time to be someone else.

>How about Ocyete;

You had just finished passing on important information that your sprite told you, to everyone else in the memo. Though you are sure that most everyone had stopped looking at it before you had begun your dump of information, seeing as you did start it off with saying that they should ask their sprite if they want to hear it from a direct source. It was mainly stuff like that the things above your hive are called The Seven Gates, despite the fact that there are fifteen of them. They said not to question it, and also not to question how they're talking with things underlined. They also told you that far beyond the gates, is a place called Skaia and on it a war is being fought on there, expect that the defending side is basically destined to lose. But that isn't important since there is apparently nothing that can be done to change that, so the player should focus on more important things. You're not sure what these so call more important things are, as your sprite refused to elaborate further on that matter, just saying that is something you gotta figure out yourself. Also, that they recommend building up your client's hive to the gates, to help them progress through the game more.

And thinking of which, you should probably go about and build up Althaf's hive to the first gate, perhaps the second gate as well. Might as well, considering that there isn't really much that you can do.

As you were building, you notice that Avasti had left a file in the memo about how to upgrade the Alchemiter, so you go and set up Althaf's Alchemiter for him, upgrading it as much as you can, which really isn't that much since there isn't any blank cards lying about. While you were going about this, you hear come changes being made to your hive.

Walking out, you see that your hive has been built up to the first gate. Curious, you make your way up towards the first gate. And just sort of walk into it. And in a fraction of a second, you are somewhere else.

Looking around, you see the slightly familiar sight of your land around you. You can't make out your hive at all no matter where you look, but you do see a small spirograph right next to you. Stepping into it, you found yourself back at your hive. Well that's interesting. You also notice that Avasti had set up your Alchemiter for upgrading. So, you might as well go about upgrading it. Which really is a productive use of your time.

Once you had finished upgrading your Alchemiter, you back you to your first gate, and go through it. Once you are on the other side of it, you put up your umbrella, and set out to explore your land. Hopefully you won't get up in too much trouble.


	13. look to the past, as we head for the future

>How about we check on what's going on with Algaea;

You have been sitting in you hive just looking at the memo on. Just soaking in the presence of the others on the memo. Honestly, you aren't used to being alone, truly alone. As there has always been someone around back in the caverns. Even if you couldn't see them, you could always hear them and know that they are there. Even when you went and left the cavern, you were never somewhere without someone within hearing distance for long. Really you had some fun times back in the caverns, perhaps more so than the average jade. That is most likely due to the fact that Caecam and Talbot insisted on hanging out with you in your hive. To the mild frustration of several jades in your enclave, but you think they're were just jealous that you had two amazing moirails and they had none. Though really, most of those hang outs were just the three of you laying around in a pile.

Honestly, this whole train of thought has got you thinking about the last time the three of you were properly together.

>Who wants a flashback? No one? Well too bad you're getting one anyways.

Caecam had just arrived in your small section of the caverns, and you are really excited to see her as you had found something that you think that she'd really enjoy. Talbot had arrived a few minutes prior and is currently lying face down into the pile of pillow and blankets that you had set up for tonight. If he were anyone else, you would have suspected that he had passed out. Actual, you aren't sure if Talbot's usual bad habits would make it more or less likely that he would pass over like that.

But that isn't something that matters at the moment as Caecam sits down onto a pillow, Talbot gets up from his spot and plops down with his head in her lap, and once Caecam give no indication that she was going to move him, he goes and moves one of her hands so that it is placed on his side. And was soon as he had settled back into her lap, Caecam begun to absent minded stroke his side, as she pulls down her bandana and give you a big smile, and tilts her back and to the side, a motion that clearly conveys an invitation to come join them, which you fully intend to do. But first, you walk over to a desk pressed up against a wall and pick up a book laying on top it.

"(] one quick momen7. caecam luv. i managed to find some7hing 7ha7 you migh7 enjoy [)" And with that, you place the book into Caecam's free hand.

"(] i was looking around for some7hing new 7o read. when i found 7his. i 7hough7 7ha7 since you enjoy 7he books 7ha7 i read you. you would like your own copy. originally i was 7hough7 i was going 7o have 7o ge7 a braille copy of i7 online for you. bu7 as luck would have i7. i managed 7o spo7 7his copy [)" You tell her, whilst giving her a big smile, despite the fact that she wouldn't see it.

Caecam give you something of a confused look, before giving you a reply, "aLgaea that is sweet and all. bUt you do know that i can't read riht"

You blink a few times, wondering whatever could she mean, "(] excuse me. i apologise. bu7 did you miss 7he par7 where i mean7ioned 7ha7 i7 is in braille [)"

Caecam gives you a slight frown, "nO no i Heared that, but i Can't read braille. i Swaer that i Have mentioned that before" sounding as casual as one can be when admitting that they can't read.

Talbot, upon hearing this turned his head to face toward Caecam and opened his eyes to give her a blank look. "caecam... my mind is a steel trap... & i do not recall you ever mentioning that fact that you are completely illiterate..."

Caecam simply makes a face at him and gives him a little pap to shush him, before returning to her previous action, but undeterred he continued "caecam... you know that you are eventually going to have to learn how to read..."

"i Refue to acknoloese that dea and find it riducuious" was her swift reply.

Now it's your turn to give a small frown, "(] caecam dear. as much as 7his pains me 7o say. we aren'7 always going 7o be 7here wi7h you. and 7hus able 7o read wha7ever i7 is 7ha7 you need read [)" Oh dear, you really don't like talking about that concept at all.

Caecam give a non-committial gesture with her free hand, before telling you in a confident sounding tone of voice, "i Can awlays get someoe else to do it for me if need be. aLso i Can always realy on text to speech so there s that"

Talbot let's out a quiet yawn, and in a complete deadpan "caecam... one day you are going to have to read something... & there won't anyone to read it for you... nor will you be able to use any sort of text to speech... & when that day comes... i will laugh..." Now you would think this would have more weight behind it if it weren't for the fact that he was in the process of snuggling deeper into Caecam's lap as he said it.

"yOu are horrible you know that right"

"oh... you know you love me..."

She snorts, before she snarks back in a teasing tone, "i Do and it is a horrible thing, like how do you stand being such a dork"

You let out a sigh, and lean into Caecam's side, "(] you 7wo are bo7h so ridiculous some7imes [)"

"only sometimes..." you could practically hear one of his eyebrows' raising as he said that.

Caecam simply gives a soft laugh and wraps her free arm around you as she gives her final thoughts on the matter, "i'Ll have you know that i Am ridicuilois all of the tme"

You all remained together like this for hours just soaking up each other's company and presence, until eventually the two of them had to return to their hives due to the fact that, despite whining from parties, they can't live in the caverns with you.

>Ok, let's go leave Algaea to her reminiscing. And see how Athoos is doing;

You have been enjoying a nice tea party with Sergeant fluffy for the last while now. And while they're weren't much of a conversationalist, but that's alright since at your usual tea parties, you're the only one that talks. Sometimes your lusus joins in, but she isn't really one for talking. Ooh, speaking of your lusus, she woke up a bit into your tea party with the Sergeant. She was a bit confused about what was going on, but not really that worried. She was just mainly curious about what you were doing, and when back to sleep after taking part in your tea party for a bit.

During your tea party you noticed that a memo was going on with all of your friends and feeling left out you joined in, you were a bit confused about what they were talking about, but you think it was about the game that they had invited you and Galie to play. Which from what you could read is the reason why your hive is somewhere else now. It's all very confusing to you. But sometimes you just got to go with the flow of things cause it's easier that way. That's what your lusus says anyway.

You only paid half attention to the memo because you were at a tea party and that would be rude. But you managed to get a general idea of what was going on. The game had sent everyone off to their own magical place, and that you're gonna have a fun adventure here. But adventure can wait for your tea party to end. Which like all things, came to an end. Which is quite sad as you were really enjoying it, but the Sergeant really thought that it would be a good idea to go out and explore as that is an important part of the game.

And you would love to do that, but you are really sleepy after that tea party, tea has that effect on you. You always want to take a nap after teatime. Which you see no reason for why you won't. You make your way to your recuperacoon, and slowly your eyelids get heavier and heavier, and you fall asleep before making it.

But then you wake up. Which is really weird since you can swear you just went to sleep. And while it looks like you're in your respiteblock, the coloring is completely off. For while your respiteblock is a big mixture of colors, so that both you are Galie are happy with it, here it is a single color.

Looking around you notice that your clothing has changed as well. And that there was someone else in your room with you, well not actually in the room, more standing in a windowsill and looking in. And he looks surprised that you're awake. At least you think that's that reason.

You haven't actually interacted with another troll before, so with no idea of what to do. You give them a little wave, and introduce yourself "hi there, i'm athoos."

He looks a bit more surprised if possible, before slowing nodding, "@->-- WASN'T EXPECTING TO SEE ANYONE ELSE AWAKE HERE. BASICALLY EVERYONE IS ALWAYS ASLEEP. OH, AND IT'S ALTHAF"

You let out a small gasp, "haffie? is that really you. it is so nice to finally meet you. oooh, we should have a tea party to celebrate. i should have some tea supplies in this block." You ramble, slowing coming to a stop as you notice Haffie looking at you with a blank expression.

"@->-- REALLY, NOT GOING TO QUESTION ANY OF WHAT I SAID AT ALL? BUT INSTEAD FOCUS ON SETTING UP A TEA PARTY OF ALL THINGS?" He asks in a deadpan tone of voice.

"of course i'm focused on the tea party. tea parties are a very important and serious matter. as well as a place where talking can happen. i can focus on whatever it was that you said. after i set up the tea party"

Haffie give you a long look then sighs, "@->-- WELL DON'T START LOOKING FOR ANY OF YOUR SUPPLIES NOW, THERE'S THIS NICE LITTLE CAFE BELOW, THAT'S JUST RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR TOWER. IF YOU REALLY WOULD PREFER TALKING OVER TEA OR WHATEVER. HOW ABOUT WE GO THERE INSTEAD."

You give him a nod, and he jumps out of windowsill towards the ground. You let out a gasp and run to the window to see him floating there with a sort of, what are you waiting for expression on his face.

Slowly you step out from the window to discover that you could fly, and with your newfound power of flight you begun to do several loops in the air and giggle to yourself, as Haffie watched with something of a slightly amused smile. Eventually you fly over to him and he begins to lead you down towards this cafe he spoke of.

>Let's do a quick check in on Paagal;

You wake up, a bit sooner than you expected to. Looking around you find the reasoning, Athoos had a tea party, and probably as always, got sleepy afterwards, leaving you awake and to go and do whatever. Opening you plamhusk you check the memo to see what you missed. And its pretty interesting stuff all in all, you get the general gist of what you should do, which is basically just, build up your client's hive and explore your land. So, you build up Jyotis' hive up to their first and second gate, keeping the path up small, as in there is just a bit more than enough space for them to walk and climb up to the gates. And set up their Alchemiter for them to upgrade when they feel like it.

With that all taken care of, you step out and take your first proper look at your land. A strange mishmash of a desert and a swamp. High in the sky are the words LANDS OF SAND AND HODGEPODGE AND MARSHES, words that disappear as soon as you see them. So, correction on that first thought, your land is a desert and a marsh mixed together into a strange hodgepodge of a land for you to explore. You shoot a quick message to Algaea asking her to either set up your Alchemiter for upgrading as soon as she can, while you're out exploring.

And you set of into the strange land you have found yourself in. Walking towards one of the building you spotted in the distance. As you were walking a strange little creature popped up out of nowhere and lunged at your face, with a murderous look in it's eyes.

Jumping back, you managed to avoid the worst of it, however you did get a small scratch on the side of your face. Pulling out one of your pole arms, to be precise a halberd, and point the tip at the creature in a threatening manner, however it didn't seem to be that threatening as the creature once one leaped towards you. Swing your halberd, you managed to hit the creature with the shaft of your weapon, flinging it a bit away from you. You move towards the creature, and as soon as you were within range, you thrust your halberd at them, stabbing into them. Before quickly pulling out and you begin a large swinging motion to get the most momentum you can for a chop with the axe part of your weapon.

Of course, as luck would have it, during your swing the creature had regained it's bearing and once more leaped at you, and managed to grappled onto you, and began to bite you. Quickly you return your halberd to your strife deck and replace it with the single dagger you have in your other strife deck as a backup weapon, and with all of your might, stabbed the creature in the head. Killing it. It disappeared and turned into what you assume, based off of the memo to be grist. They disappear as well as soon as you get close enough to them.

That was quite the encounter, while you were injured it was mainly just shallow scratches and such that should heal sooner than later. Stowing your dagger away, you continue on your way towards the building thinking about how interesting this game is going to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna be honest, this chapter is me using getting back into the grove of writing as an excuse to write some moirail interaction fluff of sorts.  
It's also a way to get my mind working on what is going to be happening next. Rather than going and free balling the plot for who knows how long. which despite that i'm still freeballing it for the forseeable future  
Also like i wrote the flashback half thinking i would make a side story of random things that i think up but can't think of how to include into the story, but guess i don't have to do that now... yet.  
and yes the paidii's land uses three words instead of two. my story my rules >:3c


	14. Somethings something mystery and confusion

>Althaf time;

Soon after the memo finished up, you fell asleep. Feeling drained from everything that had happened recently, leaving you tired. But not in that satisfying way, like after a good work out. But in a way that makes you crawl into your 'coon and stay there for till the next night. As soon as you had fallen asleep, you woke up on Prospit as you have done so for the last sweep at least.

Seeing as you have nothing to do, you decided to head out of your tower and wander about and the admire the breathtaking sights of the planet. Like you have done so for the last half sweep at least, which really has caused the sights to be less breath taking than they originally were.

When you stepped out of your tower, you notice that a few of the clouds that sometime passes by the moon and shows events that are taking place somewhere and somewhen, you aren't exactly sure about the when part of these events, as they seems to be showing things that have happened, are currently happening, or have yet to happen with no indication of which of those opinions it is. Which, in your opinion, isn't really helpful. As knowing the when would be a great deal of help.

You watch the scenes that play out in clouds above you. In one you see a figure stalk through a forest, at their side is a purrbeast that is about half of the figure's size. In another scene you see a battle going on, in which you can see about eight or nine different trolls working together to face and fight one enormous foe that towers above them. And in a third cloud, you can see three trolls together walking down the path of a giant maze and talking amongst themselves. In a final cloud, the image, for some reason or another, has this static effect to it, obscuring aspects of the scene from you. But what you do make out is a figure who is, going by their gesturing, is conversing with something that is being obscured by the static.

And soon the clouds are blown away, and out of your view. Leaving you to think on what you had just saw. Which was interesting to say the least. As you think about what you saw, you float between the towers, occasionally looking into them. When eventually you notice that the occupation of one of them was moving and looking around. Eventually the occupant looks at you and gives you a wave.

"hi there, i'm athoos."

You stare at her for a bit, before slowing nodding, "@->-- WASN'T EXPECTING TO SEE ANYONE ELSE AWAKE HERE. BASICALLY EVERYONE IS ALWAYS ASLEEP. OH, AND IT'S ALTHAF"

Athoos lets out a small gasp, before starting to ramble a bit, "haffie? is that really you. it is so nice to finally meet you. oooh, we should have a tea party to celebrate. i should have some tea supplies in this block." Coming to a stop as she notices you giving her a blank look.

"@->-- REALLY, NOT GOING TO QUESTION ANY OF WHAT I SAID AT ALL? BUT INSTEAD FOCUS ON SETTING UP A TEA PARTY OF ALL THINGS?" You ask, deadpanned.

"of course i'm focused on the tea party. tea parties are a very important and serious matter. as well as a place where talking can happen. i can focus on whatever it was that you said. after i set up the tea party"

You give Athoos another long look, before finally letting out a sigh, "@->-- WELL DON'T START LOOKING FOR ANY OF YOUR SUPPLIES NOW, THERE'S THIS NICE LITTLE CAFE BELOW, THAT'S JUST RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR TOWER. IF YOU REALLY WOULD PREFER TALKING OVER TEA OR WHATEVER. HOW ABOUT WE GO THERE INSTEAD."

Once you had received a nod from her, you jump out the window and wait for her to follow you, which she does eventually. But not before she flies around a bit, clearly amazed by it all. But soon enough you lead her to the cafe you had told her about. And the two of you started to talk a bit, it was mainly you explaining what you had said earlier had meant and telling her various things about Prospit itself. It was probably one of the most chill and pleasant conversations you had ever had while asleep. Not that it had any competition for that position, as it is the only conversation you have had while asleep. Eventually you wake you up, leaving Athoos alone, and you are back in your respiteblock in your recuperacoon.

Letting out a sigh, you get out of your 'coon, get cleaned up and dressed. Once you had gotten dressed you take a look at the memo, noticing that Avasti had left something there for the rest of you. It was instructions on how to upgrade the Alchemiter to make it better and easier to use. Nodding, you switch over to your server program with the intention of setting up Talbot's Alchemiter to be upgraded. When you notice that it has somehow already had been upgraded, without you doing anything. You also notice that his hive seems to have been built up beyond how it originally was, and you never did any of that yourself. Which leaves you confused on how that might have happened. You start looking around your hive, to see if there is or was anyone else around. But you didn't find anyone. You did see that your Alchemiter had been set up for you to upgrade it, as well as the fact that your hive has been modified to be large, taller to be exact.

Eventually you decide to contact Talbot himself to see if he had any idea on this matter. As based on your past interactions with him, you've gotten the feeling that he somehow knows things that he shouldn't have known at the time.

MM: @->-- TALBOT I WAS WONDERING IF YOU KNOW HOW IT IS THAT YOUR ALCHEMITER WAS UPGRADED, WHILE I WAS ASLEEP? AND ANOTHER QUESTION THAT IS ALONG THOSE SAME LINES, BUT IS ABOUT YOUR HIVE BEING BUILT UP AS WELL.   
ct: that is a great question... one that i would love to answer... however i am in the middle of something at the moment... so i'm afraid i can't answer you....   
MM: @->-- DUDE, I AM LITERALLY LOOKING AT YOU SITTING AT YOUR DESK, LOOKING BORED LIKE YOU CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING TO DO.   
ct: don't call me out like that... i'm just waiting for someone to get back to me...   
MM: @->-- REALLY. FROM THIS ANGLE I CAN'T HELP BUT SEE YOUR SCREENS AND IT LOOKS LIKE YOU'VE GOT SEVERAL WINDOWS OF THE SAME PROGRAM OPENED UP AND ARE WATCHING THE DO SOMETHING OR OTHER.   
ct: alright... i'm running a program called gristtorrent... it's a part of the game... i had caecam send me the program via the messenger... after installing it from the disc that i had deployed from her... since i didn't feel like messaging you to just ask you to deploy it for me..   
MM: @->-- AND THE REASON YOU DIDN'T JUST SAY THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE?   
ct: b/c i didn't feel like having to explain the program... & what it does...   
MM: @->-- WELL YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO DO THAT ANYWAYS.   
ct: do i have to... i feel like we can end this conversation & pretend that you didn't contact me at all... & we can just go on w/e both of us were doing previously...   
MM: @->-- NOPE. I'M AFRAID YOU HAVE CAUGHT MY ATTENTION AND CURIOSITY.   
ct: fine... in short... it let's a player basically send grist to each other... as well as take it from others...   
ct: i have been basically been moving the grist everyone has around... evening them out between us all really... i'm pretty much done do so w/ all the grist everyone had entering the game...   
MM: @->-- HUH, THAT IS INTERESTING. AND SINCE WE HAVE PROVEN THAT YOU AREN'T IN MIDDLE OF ANYTHING. HOW ABOUT YOU ANSWER THOSE QUESTIONS OF MINE.   
ct: how about i don't... & you can pretend that i did...   
MM: @->-- I'M JUST GOING TO MESSAGING YOU UNTIL TELL ME.   
ct: you do know the block block exists right... i can always press that you know...   
MM: @->-- AND YOU'D JUST PROVE THAT YOU KNOW THE ANSWER TO MY QUESTION. SO REALLY I WOULD WIN, EVEN IF YOU BLOCKED ME WITHOUT TELLING ME.   
ct: holy fuck... i don't fucking know... it was probably magik or some shit like that... stop asking... seriously why would you think that i would know the answer to that question...   
MM: @->-- I MEAN YOU DID IMPLY THAT YOU DID KNOW THE ANSWER WITH YOUR FIRST REPLY.   
ct: maybe i just like appearing as if i know everything... ever thought about that...   
MM: @->-- PERHAPS, BUT I REALLY DO FEEL LIKE YOU DO KNOW THE ANSWER. BUT I'LL DROP IT IF YOU REALLY WANT ME TO.   
MM: @->-- BUT ONLY IF YOU TELL ME IF YOU REALLY DO OR DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER.   
ct: fine... i do know the answer... but i am never telling... b/c really... where is the fun in that...   
MM: @->-- ALRIGHT. I'LL DROP THIS WHOLE QUESTIONING THING. I JUST HAVE ONE QUESTION THAT IS TOTALLY UNRELATED.   
ct: what...   
MM: @->-- IS IT JUST ME, OR DID THIS CONVERSATION SEEM TO BE A JUST A TAD A SHADE OF BLACK, LIKE I'M NOT IMAGINING THAT RIGHT?   
MM: @->-- CAUSE I REALLY HOPE IT ISN'T JUST ME. NOT CAUSE YOU DON'T SEEM LIKE YOU'D BE A GOOD KISMESIS OR ANYTHING. I'M JUST NOT INTERESTED IN YOU LIKE THAT.   
ct: ...   
ct: fuck... it sorta does... doesn't it... can we like swear to take this to our deaths... or something... b/c i'm w/ on the whole not being interested in you thing...   
MM: @->-- YEAH, THAT SOUNDS GOOD TO ME.   
ct: good... 

Well that was a conversation that you had, one that didn't really answer anything, as well as being one that you are going to do your damnedest to forget happened as well. You go about upgrading your Alchemiter to take your mind off of that. It was a simple enough process seeing as you had a good set of instructions to follow and walk you through it all. Once you finish with that you, take another look around the area, and you don't see anything of in the distance that is of interesting to you. So, you decide to head through the first of the gates above your hive.

Once you had stepped through it, you ended up somewhere else on your land. Taking a look around you notice what appear to be some old buildings off in the distance and start walking towards them. Upon arriving at the closest building, you hear a new sound that joined in the echoing river sounds. It was the sound of some sorta grunt or yell, and while it did echo about all around you. You can tell it came from above you. Looking up, you see a creature jumping down from the roof of the building towards you.

Jumping back, you manged to avoid the rather obvious attack on you. If you're being honest, it was a good attempt, it's just that it's probably hard to sneak up on anyone here considering how much it echoes. You move away from the creature a bit more, to get some distance between the two of you, and take out your megaphone as you do so. Aiming at the creature that had attempted an attack on you, you start screaming into your megaphone for as long as you can. A horribly loud sound exits your megaphone, reverberating through the air towards the creature. The sound wave hits the creature, slamming into it.

The creature goes to cover its ears to protect them, but it doesn't really work, as from how they're reacting, their eardrums have been ruptured and they're having to deal with that now. You continue screaming at them, seeing how it is pushed farther away from your as you keep screaming into your megaphone, watching as the creature seems to scream in pain, not that you're sure they're actually screaming due to how the noise you are producing is overpowering them.

Soon enough you stop your onslaught of sound, and run up to the creature, whom at this point has fallen to their knees seemly having gone catatonic. Once you were right next to them, you slam your megaphone into their head. Upon making contact with the creature, it busted into some weird objects that were just sorta absorbed into you.

That was all in all a weird experienced you just had. Maybe that was what grist looked like, which is weird, since they looked like 2d jpeg artifacts, even though they existed in a 3d space. Regardless of that, you've got a building to explore.


	15. That part of the OST that is labeled as "ambient creepy forest"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, you aren't imagining it, there is actually an image right below here. and before you ask, yes i did draw it myself.. with a mouse.

>Let's go over to Caecam;

You return to your wandering through the forest once again, but this time you have the purrbeast that you had encounter walking along side with you. It was a nice peaceful walk through the mysterious woods really, even if your company isn't really one for conversations, but that more because they're a purrbeast than them being unfriendly. In fact, you would describe them as being extremely friendly. As they constantly brushed up against your legs and purring really loudly.

The song of the forest continues to play as you walk through it, with the occasional interruption to the melody with sharp noise and parts of it missing. You do your best to ignore when the song of the world is interrupted, but it is hard to do, considering you rely on sound to navigate and you need to keep your ears open to make sure you don't walk right into a tree or some shit like that. Eventually you feel you travel companion nudge you, seemingly trying to direct you down a different path. Well, you can't think of a reason for why you shouldn't go along with them.

Letting them lead you, you start to leave the area of the forest that was mainly the trees that played the music, and it seemed like it was getting to be more normal trees. Eventually you reach a clearing some distance away from the musical trees, not far enough that you could no longer hear them, but far enough that they're more distant background noise than anything.

You let out a few clicks to try and hear why your companion might have gone and lead you to here. From what you can hear, it seems as though there are some small buildings that seem to be either built onto or into the trees that surround the clearing you are in. You also hear movement from the buildings as well, the good news is that they don't sound like that things that attacked you earlier.

Your companion lets out a meow, probably to signal those inside that you're a friend or something. As soon after you could hear whatever was in the buildings come out to get a closer look at your or something. And it seems as though they are all purrbeast like you little traveling pal.

Soon enough, you were in the middle of a large group of purrbeast, each of which were you guess were smelling you or something, probably trying to get a read on you. Plopping down on the ground in the middle of this large group smelling and rubbing against you, you begin the process of accepting this is your life now. There is no escape when it comes to a purrbeast, let alone fuck knows how many this is, you just have to accept that they are there, and stay where you are until they leave of their own volition. Such is the way of purrbeasts.

Eventually the group dispersed, leaving you alone with the center of the clearing with only a single purrbeast, that you are assuming is the one that you were traveling with and the one that brought you here.

"sO, nice place you ot here"

You receive a meow in response. One that somehow is able to convey their incredulous question of, really?

"wHat do you want me to go into detaul or something, well in casue you haven't eralised yet, but i'M blid"

"i Can't do tat going into detaul thing, or was it like you were expecting me to ask you why you went and guided me here o r soemthing like that? cAuse if that's the cause 'm all ars for the ehy of that matter"

You get another meow in response, one that seems to have the expressed intent of informing you that the purrbeast is staring at your judgingly. So, you turn you head to face in their direction and shooting them the flat look as best as you can.

"aright, since i Ca only really get he general gist of what your meows mean, how about i Ask something and you give me one meow for yes, and two for no. tHat sound ood to you"

You get two meows in response. Good hears like this system is going to work for the both of you. Alright so let's start this off with something simple.

"sO did you direct me hear for a reason other than to sow me your home" Two meows, alright.

"iS that reason a problem that you thikni Can help fix or something like that" Once again, you get two meows in response. That's interesting.

"aLright, that's nice to know that you juts want e for my help. wHat is it like you can't do this thing cause you have paws and con't grab it" That got you a single meow, and a slightly angry headbutt against your leg.

"aLright alright, sorry. i Just can't think f anything you would need help with that isn't something like that" you let out a sigh, "hOnestly, like i said this plaecis nice, considering there are none of thos emusical tress around to ruin the atmnosphere with their sour notes and ruining your hearing" You're a bit surprised when you get two meows in response to that. Which confuses you a bit, as you aren't sure what your friend is saying yes to.

"Ait was that a yes, as in you argee with me about this being a nice spot or did i Say something that is realated to the probalem you wanted help with" You are met with silence in response. Oh right, guess that isn't a question that can be answered with a yes or a no.

"uM, one for the first choice, two for the seconded, and thee fo neither" You get two meows as your answer, which is really interesting, as there isn't much in what you said that could be related to the problem your friend wanted help with.

"wAit, is the problem somethign to do with the muical trees and the occassional sour note they play" The answer to your question is two meows, confirming your thoughts on what the problem could be.

"hUh, so i'M not sure on how i Colud hlp with that really. fUck this would be easier if we weren't bascially playing twenty questions. hMm, ooh idea, what if i Gave you a etboard, think you could litterally soell it out for me" You got two meows in response. Awesome, time to get this kitty a keyboard.

"wEll, if we want to do that, we're gonna have to head back to my hive"

With that, you and your friend begin to trek back to your hive. Once or twice on your way back, you came across some more of the creatures that had attacked you before, but you made quick work of them, considering you decided to forgo any sort of ranged combat with them, and just rushed up to one of them and basically jammed the barrel of one of your shotguns down it's throat and fired a few shells into it. Basically killing it almost instantly, with only a few scratches on you as a result of your charge.

This of course startled its companions, but they soon jumped at you. And get some hits on you. You managed to club one of them with your shotgun, pushing them away, giving you enough time to repeat what you had gone to their friend moments before, to the one that was still next to you. Which left you with just one of them, on the ground, and by the sound of then, cowering in fear. Which allowed you to easily place the barrel of your shotgun on the head of your enemy and blow their thinkpan out.

All in all, the fight was on the shorter side, and only minor scratches as a result. You do think that you went and scared your traveling companion with how brutally efficient you were. Considering how they did their best to say a few feet away from you after the fight for a bit. They eventually got over it, you think. Since they did eventually end up walking with you, right at your side once again and stopped the whole remain at a distance thing.

Eventually the two of you reached your hive. Though it did sound larger than it originally was. So you were a bit confused on how that happened, until you remembered that Talbot had sent you a short and slightly vague message earlier, that was basically said that he went and upgraded your shit. Guess this is what he meant by that.

Entering with you purrbeast friend, you started to search around for a keyboard that would work for the purpose you needed it for. In the background you can hear your friend meowing at something, you aren't sure what they're meowing out, but they are. You manage to find a keyboard that will probably work, and head over to them to tell them that you've found one that they can use to, when you heard something that could only be described as what a sudden flash of light would probably sound like.

And now, instead of hearing the presences of your beastly friend, and the thing that, which based on the memo from a while ago, is your sprite, which you have been ignoring since you and your hive were transported, in the room. You now can only hear the presence of a single being in the room. One that sounds vaguely like the annoyance that is your sprite, and also vaguely like your friend.

"well hiss is diffurrent than what i was expecting to happen." Called out a voice that you had never heard before, one that had a sorta feline tone and feel it to. "i supaws i should introduce myself. you can claw me lynxsprite."

You aren't exactly sure on how you are supposed to process this.


	16. Crawl out through the fallout. I mean if there actually was any fallout.

You've been messing around in your server program for the past little while now, seeing what there is that you can do to Avasti's hive. Basically, teaching yourself what it is that you can do in this game with the other players, and so far, it has been less than you thought it would be, seeing as you can only interact with Avasti. And it seems like there really isn't else you can do in the server program now, beside building up his hive more than you already have, but that takes a lot of grist, and while you do have a almost stupidly amount of build grist to use, it doesn't seem right to just go and fucking build it up all the way up to the rest of them. Just some sort of instinctive feeling that you have, that while it might be a good idea in the moment, in a terrible one in the long run of the whole, like it is too early in the game. You ration this feeling as that the game wouldn't as fun as it could be if you'd skipped all the things between them. You guy aren't trying to speedrun this game or some shit like that.

With that whole train of thought rationalized, you get off of your computer, and start to head out to explore the place where you had found yourself. On your way out, you notice that it seems that one of the Paidiis had gone and set your Alchemiter up for upgrading, which of nice of whichever of the two did that. So, you might as well go about and upgrade it in the same way you watch Avasti did his, and since you don't have to figure it out yourself, you manage to upgrade it much faster than he did.

Deciding to take a look at the upgraded interface for the Alchemiter, which is very sleek if you are being honest, and start to mess with it a bit to see what it is that you can do with it. Which isn't much since you don't have any codes inputted into to, so it's not like you can really do much without inputting one.

So, you take a look at one of the cards at contain one of your flamethrowers and input it into the machine. And for the second code, you basically keysmash a random second one into the machine. Selecting the combine option that is labeled as AND, you manage to create something called the Chainthrower, it looks like a mixture of a chainsaw and your flamethrower, awesome. You put it into your strife deck and decide to check out the random code that you had used to make it.

Typing it in, you are given the information that it was the code for some sort of toy chainsaw, and not an actual chainsaw. Deciding to not alchemize it, you go and get the code for your fire safety helmet/hood, and combine it the code for a husktop, and end up getting the Non-flammable huskhood. Which was nice, as you now have an computer that you can use easily in your fire safety suit. You quickly, get dressed said fire safety suit, with the new computerized hood part of it, instead of your old non computer one.

And you finally head out into the land that is outside of your hive, this is going to be very interesting indeed.

Taking a step out into the barren flaming wasteland that surrounds your hive, you look around and take note of giant walls that are scattered about the landscape, as well the buildings off in the distance. You also take note of the trenches that have been dug into the land, some going on for what looks like miles, while others look like they only go for a few feet. Along with what seems like differing depths from where you are standing.

In your big look around, you notice that you and your hive are located on the top of what seems like the tallest hill out of all the ones that you can see. And a look up revels the one of the Paiidis had built your hive up to the second gate, so you could go through one of the first of your two gates, if you wanted to. But you think you'll head out on foot for now, probably head through one of them later. Probably when you get back from exploring.

You began to saunter down the hill towards in a random direction. It takes a while to make it down to the bottom of the hill, but you eventually make it down. And once you were down there, you absentmindedly note that the walls are much larger than you thought they were up on the hill. You continue your walking for a bit, before coming to a large trench in the ground, one that's deeper and wider than you feel comfortable attempting to jump across. Letting out a sigh, you start to walk along the trench looking for a spot in which it ends, and you can get to the other side of it. 

You walk along the trench for what feels like an hour, looking around, you notice that you seem to be where you had started, seeming to have walked around the entirety of the hill on which your hive rests. Heading back up the hill to your hive, you look around at the ground around the hill, and finally notice that there is a long trench that surrounds the entire hill, cutting you off from the rest of the world. You feel a bit embarrassed that you didn't notice that before you had gone down, because you would have gone and went through one of your available gates instead of just wasting your time and effort.

Climbing up your hive to your first gate, you cross through it, and find yourself in the middle of nowhere. Well not really nowhere, as it looks like some sort of burnt down forest, but you aren't sure where you are in relation to your hive. Which you should probably try and see if you can find some hint of it off in the distance.

After a few minutes of looking, you find nothing that would suggest where your hive would be relative from here. There is a spirograph floating behind you, that you haven't tried anything with yet, stepping through it, you find yourself back at your hive. Well, that works. You begin to walk off in a random direction once again.

Your walk was mainly uninteresting, you came across a few walls and trenches, but you were able to get around them without much trouble. The interesting part of your walk happened when you hear something coming up behind you.

Spinning around, you seem something coming at you with a punch. You were unable to dodge due to them being so close, causing you to take a punch to the gut. You quickly take out your new weapon and swing it at your assailant. As you swung it, it turned on automatically, and thus its blade began to spin. You pull the trigger of the weapon, causing the flamethrower part of it to come to life as it began to spit out fire, and it continued to do so as you held down the trigger on it.

Upon making contact with the thing that had attacked you, the blade cut into it, tearing it apart, as you douse it in flames, burning it alive. Killing it easily. A few moments later, it sorta exploded into some weird objects. Leaning over to investigate them, you notice that they look like the icons for the various different grist in the server program, so this must be how they look like in real life. Touching one, you see how it disappears, seemingly absorbed into you as soon as you make contact with them.

Regardless of that, that fight was a tad too easy for your liking, if you're being completely honest. Letting out a sigh, you put your weapon back into your strife deck, and turn around to begin walking once more.

But as soon as you turn around you hear the sound of loud stomps behind you. Turning back around quickly, you see a big behemoth of a nasty towering over you. Its arms raised up, and with its hands clasped together, and bringing them down onto you, with the full intention of crushing you with them. Moving as quickly as you could, you start to run away to dodge the incoming blow.

You managed to dodge the fists coming down, but just barely so. As you had managed to just get out of it's reach, with its fists passing by you, mere centimeters away from you. The force of the fists impacting the ground shook the ground around you, knocking you off balance, and onto your ass.

Your foe slowly lifted their hands, and separated them, and reaching one of them out towards you. You try to scoot away from its grasp, but you are too slow to do so. As it grasps you in it's large hand and raised you up into the air.

You start to struggle and just manage to get your arms out from your sides. Quickly you retrieve the Chainthrower back from your strife deck, swing it at the large beefy arm of the monster, with it turning on automatically once again.

Your weapon began to carve into the monster, not as easily as it did to the creature from before, but it with a bit of effort, you are able to fully cleave through the arm of this monster. And as a result of there being nothing to keep the arm up in the air, gravity took hold of you and the arm, and pulled you both to the ground, like the bastard that it is.

Still in the dismembered limb's grasp, you are once again on the ground, and the monster you are in the midst of facing appears to be screaming in pain, clutching the stump where it's arm once was with its other hand. Taking this opportunity of it being distracted with the pain that you had caused it. You start to force open the removed hand's grasp on you the best that you can. You would be more in a hurry to do so, if it wasn't for the how distracted the monster is.

Soon enough you manage to get out, and you were just fast enough to do so, as the monster had just recovered from its screaming fit and had regained its bearings. Glaring down at you, it began to swipe at you with it's remaining hand, in an rage fueled strike, intent on grabbing you once again, and squeezing the life out of you. But this time you are ready for them. Lifting up your weapon, you maneuver it to block the incoming fist.

And the fist makes contact with the Chainthrower, causing you to dig your feet into the ground to prevent you from being blown away from the attack. You just barely manage to hold your ground against it. Locked in a sort struggle between the force behind the fist, and the force you are putting behind your weapon. You and the monster are locked in combat, neither of you willing to give and be killed.

Grinning behind your helmet, you pull the trigger on your weapon, spurring the flamethrowers of your weapon to life, spraying fire out at the fist that are your locked in a struggle against. Burring the flesh of its fingers and setting its entire hand alight.

This, of course, distracted the monster. But it was only for a moment. However, that was just enough time for you to turn this whole thing around. Pressing a button on the side of the Chainthrower, toggling it's chainsaw function on. Overriding its need for you to swing it to turn it on, thus its blade spun to life once more. Pushing with as much force and effort as you could, you began to saw into the fist, slicing through the monster's hand, removing over half of it, along with a bit of the monster's arm, with your attacking. 

The monster let out another scream as you disabled its remaining arm, staggering a step back in shock. Taking the opportunity presented, you lead its face, and swing you weapon at its head, the chain spinning, fire being sprayed out. You cleave the Chainthrower through its head with your full strength, killing it.

Landing in a squat next to the corpse, you stand up straight and stretch a bit after that more satisfying combat. As you stretch, the corpse of the monster you just faced turns into grist just like that creature you had face right before it, you collect it as soon as finished stretching.

Now that fight was fun, and probably the universe's response to you thinking that the first encounter was too easy. As if to spite you, like you thought that was easy, well how about this? How do you like that?

And well universe, you did like that very much so. Though, you're pretty sure the main reason why it was so satisfying to you was that the monster had managed to sneak up on you, and you only noticed it the moment before it attacked. Now if you didn't notice it, that would have been a different fight. Actually, it would also be a different fight if you had noticed it sooner.

Oh well, no use thinking about the what ifs and what not. You've got places to explore and fun to be had, no use tying yourself down with worries of what could have happened. After all that is how you've lived your life so far, and it hasn't led you astray yet, so it probably won't anytime soon.


	17. Just randomly select a track from either the Maze Runner OST or the Call of Cthulhu soundtrack

You've been overseeing the transference and movement of grist for a quite a bit now, and it looked like it was just about to finish up. Which is a good thing, as it means you don't have anything else to do at your hive, and you can go out and explore the place some more. Though you never did have to do this in the first place, so if you wanted to, you could have gone and stopped when you wanted to and be done with it all, but you digress.

While you were waiting for it to finish up, Althaf starts messaging you. And the conversation you had was an interesting one, as well as one that will never be seen by anyone. As a conversation that the both of you will be taking to your deaths, and probably beyond that as well. In fact you have already deleted the logs for that particular chat off of your computer, and hope that he will do the same, if he hasn't already done so already.

But even disregarding the parts of it that shall never be mentioned again, you were a bit nervous when he directly asked if you had any knowledge about the matter of how your hive was built up, as well as how your Alchemiter was upgraded, but luckily enough you were able to avoid answering that. Of course, you had to tell him about GristTorrent in exchange for him to not press on getting an answer for his original question, but that is worth keeping the how a secret.

A ding from your computer notifies you that everything has been completed, so you close GristTorrent and get up from your computer. You think that you might go and talk to your sprite for some information on this game, more than that which Ocyete shared, considering they did say to ask your sprite for details if you wanted them.

Heading out to look for them, you find them in one of the lower halls, cleaning it for some fucking reason that is beyond you. Maybe because you used a vacuum to make them, is that the reasoning? You aren't entirely sure, frankly you don't really care about the why, just that they don't mess up your hive in their attempt at cleaning it.

You get their attention and get them to start telling you about different parts of the game, getting the same information that Ocyete shared, but you push for more information on this so-called war that is going on at the moment. Mainly about who is fighting it, and why they are. Even if it isn't something that would help you with the game, this sort of thing has always been an interest of yours. Really just learning things in general has been an interest of yours.

In your conversations with your sprite, you learn to about the sides of this war that is going on, between the two groups known as Prospitians and Dersites. From this conversation you also learn about something interesting about the home of these two groups.

Derse and Prospit, the two dream moons of the game. A location where a player finds themself once they have fallen asleep. A sort of waking dream world of sorts. It's an interesting thing to be honest, as it means that there currently exists a version of you that is currently sleeping right now. And when the topic fell onto the dream moons, your sprite offhandedly mentions something about how on Prospit, the players are treated as member of royalty by the population, while you and your fellow Derse dreamers are treated and seen more like mascots. Which is interesting in and of itself, but that off handed remark tells you which of the moons you reside on, which is nice to know.

You also learn about what makes the moons different from each other, besides their populations, like how far away from Skaia they orbit it.

Prospit was right next to it, occasionally coming into its atmosphere in its orbit, coming in contact with Skaias prophetic clouds, which is an interesting thing in and of itself, considering what you could see in them. Derse however, has its orbit as far away from Skaia as probably reasonable could, and while those that dream on it don't have access to the prophetic clouds that those on Prospit do, they do have something else available to them on occasion. 

Derse dreamers have contact with beings called Horrorterrors, eldritch monstrosity that will speak with those on Derse, whispering in their ears with knowledge, with their own agendas at play, beings hard to both understand and comprehend. Sometimes driving those that hear them mad, other times filling them with terror beyond reason. And as you heard your sprite talk about them something in your mind clicked, and you stop paying attention to what your sprite is saying as the pieces start to come together in your mind.

You've never really understood why you didn't like to sleep. At least, why you couldn't understand it fully, as you usually explained away your lack of sleep due to being busy with things and having better things to do than sleeping the day away. But you always felt in the back of your mind that wasn't the complete reasoning for why you didn't sleep. It was as if the act of sleeping was something that you subconsciously did not want to do. But since you could never figure out why you seemed to be subconscious averse to sleeping, you tried to explain it away with being busy.

But now that you know about the existence of the Horrorterrors, of the fact that they whisper to the players who dream on Derse. It all starts to come together, as if you had found the missing piece to the puzzle you didn't realize was missing. That was the origin of your aversion to sleeping. You did not wish to hear their quiet whispers. And while they may be whispering to your dream self at the moment, you are awake so they might as well be whispering to someone who has earplugs in. You can't hear them, but in the back of your mind, you can feel them, waiting for you to sleep, so that you can hear their whispers and messages once again.

Not to say that they aren't whispering to your dream self at this moment. You don't know whether or not they are, they could be waiting for you to sleep to begin their whispering to you. Or they might be whispering to you now, despite the fact you can't hear them. Perhaps they know you can feel them even when awake, and thus speak to you still, to remind you that they are there.

Honestly, this knowledge makes you want to sleep even less than you usually do. But there is nothing that you can do to change it, as you aren't sure if you are able to wake up on Derse when you fall asleep or not. For all you know you are 'awake' on Derse but block out the time you spend there in an effort of blocking out the whispers of the Horrorterrors from your mind and memory. Knowing yourself, it wouldn't be that uprising to you if that was the case. And even if you were awake on Derse, where would you go, you can't think of a safer place for your dreaming self to be than there. So you might as well just stay there.

You try and stop thinking about it, as thinking about that whole thing more than you already have, as you have things to be doing and there isn't any time to waste think about things you can't control.

Focusing back on your sprite, you notice that they had stopped talking, clearly noticing the fact that you had stopped paying attention to them. Reflectively you ask them if they know what the goal of this game actually is, what the win condition was.

All you got in return was a vague answer about it being something worth the dangers of the game and that'd you'd find out eventually over the course of playing the game. Which is a bullshit answer and they know it. They were radiating such a smug vibe as they said it. Walking off, you take out a random object from your sylladex, which ended up being the suction device used when the load gapper isn't working right and chuck it at them as you walk away towards your front door. 

Standing outside your hive, let out a deep breath, and stretch a bit. Before starting to climb up the wall of the maze that was closest to you and looked to be the easiest to climb up.

Soon enough you were back on the top of the maze and gazing out onto the large endless maze that you have found yourself in as your setting for this game. You clear your mind of what you were thinking of before, as you start to plan where it is that you are going to go.

The first question is where can you go, with the obvious answer of wherever you want to. And that leads to the question of, where do you want to go. Which is much harder to answer than it should be. Considering that you can't see really anything of interest from where you are, you can't chose based off any sort of interesting landmarks off in the distance, so you might as well be going in a random direction. Which you could do, but you really don't want to do that.

So you need a reason for why this random direction is better than any other random direction. So how about you head off in the direction opposite of the only entrance into the maze from your hive. As that would mean that you are intended to head in that direction, and follow it to a predetermined destination, which would be a good reason for going that direction. However, that, in your opinion, is also a good reason on why not to go that why. As you want to do this by your rules and so going the opposite direction is a perfectly reasonable direction to go.

Marking down another victory for logic, no matter how circular that logic just was. Considering you really didn't need to do that in the first place, you just wanted to feel good and smart with the decision that you made. But regardless of that, you set off on top of the walls of your maze, away from your intended entrance of the maze. With no real destination in sight or in mind.

You wanderings are mainly you following the path the wall you currently on would lead, every once in a while you go and jump the gap between walls, with every once and in while being whenever the wall you were on ended, or when you were bored of walking on the wall that you currently on.

When jumping across, you either managed to reach the top of the next wall with a normal jump, sometimes you had to get a running start before you leaped. And a few times, you weren't able to land on the top of the wall you were jumping but were lucky enough to grab at the side of the wall and not fall to the ground and injury yourself.

Putting those close calls aside, your walk has been uninteresting all in all. Occasionally you would come across some creatures on the ground, never in groups of large than like three. And never that difficult to dispose of. Just you dropping down on top of one of them, followed by a quick whip or swipe at the rest of the group with your chainsaw chain. Slicing into them, catching them off guard as you quickly go about killing them with a strange proficiency that you didn't realize you had. Those fights would have been more interesting if it wasn't so easier to defeat them with barely any injuries.

Eventually in your travels across the maze, you come across a large clearing. Which is interesting as the only one of those that you have seen is the one that you hive occupies. Looking down into it from your place on top the walls, you can clearly see what looks to be a sort of village in the clearing. Seems like you have found something interesting to explore. 


	18. Silent Hill, but without the zombies. Wait, were there zombies in silent hill? brb gonna check

It hasn't been long since you have finished writing up your instructions for the rest of the group on the matter of how to go about upgrading their Alchemiters in a text file and uploading to the memo for the group to see. You have managed to do several things in that time since, you have gone and built up Ocyete's hive up another level to their next gate, afterwards you have been sitting at your Alchemiter trying to think of some new interesting item combinations that would be practical and useful.

Sadly, you haven't been able to think of more than combing one of your bows, and one of your rifles together, getting a weapon that reminds you a bit of a crossbow, but operated more like a rifle in your opinion. Considering it's more a rifle that shoots arrows instead of bullets, with all the distance and force that a normal rifle would shoot a bullet.

Since it seems as there is nothing else you can do, you might as well finally go and explore the place you had ended up. Which you have been putting off for longer than you should have. And you are just trying to think of a reason for to continue to do so, in an attempt to delay the inevitable task that you are going to do.

With a sigh you get up and make your way out of your hive. Exiting out of your front door, into the foggy world that awaits you outside.

Looking out, you are once again reminded why you have been putting off your exploration, the whole place is covered in a thick fog that you can barely see through. Which would make the whole exploring thing difficult to do. As you would have a hard time finding your way back to your hive in the case of an emergency.

But you can't think of any reason for why you should continue delaying this, so you might as well as go out there and explore.

Deciding that just walking in a single direction is the best thing you can do. You start walking in the direction of closest thing you can make out in the distance through the thick heavy fog.

Despite your walk being uneventful the entire way, you had a feeling of unease the whole time, the source of which you couldn't put your finger on. Perhaps it was because of how much this place reminded you of a horror game, that there was just a monster waiting in the fog. Waiting for an opportunity to attack.

Honestly this whole place doesn't seem as though it would be good for your health. Considering you are having scary thought like that, purely due to the fog.

Eventually you arrived at the thing that you had barely seen in the distance, it was a single building, built into a large tree that stood all by its lonesome. Heading inside of it, you had to crouch down due to the door of the building being half of your height.

The inside is a single room with a ladder on the far wall leading up to the floor above, but it is otherwise completely empty. You aren't entirely sure if there was something in here, that this place would be less strange than it already is. Taking a look at the upper floors, you find them similarly empty.

Feeling a bit disappointed that you didn't find anything, you crawl back out of the door and look around for anything else that could be considered a point of interest for you to go and investigate.

But as you look around, you notice that you can't make out your hive at all in the distance. It wasn't in the direction you remember coming from. And you could remember being able to see it in that direction right before you reached the building and entered it. But now, as you have previously established, you can't do that anymore now. Did the fog get thicker? Are you just remembering the direction that you came from?

Yeah, that's it. You walk a bit away from the building and look in all directions, but you are still unable to spot your hive at all. What more, when you turn around to head back to the empty building you were at not five minutes ago. It was no longer there; it has simply vanished as if it was never there to begin with in the first place.

Leaving all alone in the middle of a thick and heavy fog, with no idea where you are, nor where anything else is either.

>Switch over to Algaea;

You have been sitting in your hive for who knows how long reminiscing about the past. Eventually you are snapped out of it due to the sounds of something being placed in your hive, as well as other such loud noises. Getting up to investigate the source of this, you find that Caecam has deployed some new machinery attachments to your Alchemiter.

A bit confused you head back over to your husktop to ask her about this matter.

\-- skittishMonk started trolling anarchicTerror --

sm: (] caecam dear. i was hoping 7ha7 you would be able 7o answer my ques7ion. abou7 wha7 i7 is 7ha7 you have jus7 deployed in my hive [)   
AT: iT's some stuff for you to be able to upgrade your aLchemiter   
sm: (] wha7 is i7 7ha7 you mean [)   
AT; dId you not read that text file that aVasti sent to the memo. tHe one about updraging, with like some instuctions on how to go able doing taht   
sm: (] oh no. i have no7. i am afraid 7o say 7ha7 i have been. no7 paying a77en7ion 7o 7he memo for a while now. i have been. le7 us say. dis7rac7ed [)   
AT: oH, distracted? iS that so, distracted by what might i Ask. wAs it by something not to bementioned around polite company   
AT: cAyse if it is, well i Am not plite compant now, so you can tell me   
sm: (] caeacm. dear. luv. i love you very much. bu7 can you no7. those sor7 of personal habi7s are no7 some7hing 7ha7 i wish 7o discuss wi7h you [)   
AT: oH i Get it, a girl outta have her secerts and all   
sm: (] caecam. please [)   
AT: >:/   
AT: aLriht fine, i'Ll stop. bUt seriousl if you check the memo there should be a file from aVasti about upgrading the aLchemiter   
AT: tHere was also a lot of other stuff in the moemo you might want to check ouy, since ou haven't been playing attention to it   
sm: (] yes. good idea. i'm going 7o go do 7ha7 [)   
sm: (] oh. before 7ha7. how have you been [)   
AT: oH i'Ve ben doing good. tHis whole game has been interesting so far, and sure it has been borind at times, but it makes up for that   
sm: (] 7ha7 is good 7o hear. well. i shall see you la7er [)   
AT: yEah, heaya later as well   
AT: <>   
sm: (] <> [)

So that answers that question of yours. Looking in the memo, you check on what it is that you have missed. Which is actually more than you would have expected. As there is several different pieces of information that has been dumped by various different people. There is the upgrading instructions from Avasti, like Caecam said. There is also some stuff from Ocyete about information that they learnt from their sprite. There is a weird and vague message from Talbot in the memo as well. Something about a moon and sleeping. Which makes no sense to you, and it makes you worry about him a little as well.

Well, you can message him later to make sure that he's alright. Opening up the instructions from Avasti, you go about the process of upgrading the Alchemiter. Which doesn't take that long to do.

Back at your husktop, you go and build up Athoos' and Pagaal's hive up to their second gate, in addition to setting up their Alchemiter for upgrading. Before sending a small friendly message to whichever of the two that is currently online. Which just so happened to be Paagal at this moment in time.

Stepping back out of your hive, you are surprised to notice that there is now a structure built on top of the hill in which your hive is located in. Look as though Caecam has gone and built up your hive as well.

Climbing the Structure to the first gate, you step through it out of curiosity to find out what it does. And you find yourself somewhere else in the world, with a spirograph hanging in the air behind you.

Looking around, you see that it is the same land that you had found yourself once when you had started the game, just a different location than where your hive is. Stepping into the spirograph next to you. You find yourself back at your hive. In front of it to be exact.

Climbing back up the structure built onto your hive, you go higher than before and go through the second gate, wondering where it will take you. Probably somewhere else in this place, but different than where the first gate sent you. Stepping through it, you find yourself standing on the top of a different structure than before. And looking around, a different place than before. This is no longer your hilly land, bathed in its gentle light. But rather in a forest with a dark blue sky, the world illuminated but a source unknown. But clearly not one that would color the sky with its light.

A bit confused about where you are, you begin to descend down the building to ground level. As you climb down, the building starts to look more and more familiar. Until you finally recognized it once you were on the ground.

This is Caecam's hive, you have ended up at Caecam's hive. When you told her you'd see her soon, you weren't actually expecting to well, see her soon. Not this soon at least. Oh dear, you didn't even send a message ahead of you to tell here that you were coming over, you're usually much more polite than this. You've never actually arrived at either of your moirails' hives unannounced before, as you always felt bad about the idea of dropping in without them knowing and interrupting them if they're in the middle of something.

There is nothing you can do about that now. But you can try and maintain some semblance polite manners despite all of that. You can still just ring her doorbell instead of just walking in, so that it isn't like you are completely just barging in out of nowhere.

You ring the doorbell and do your best to pull yourself together. Even though you know that Caecam won't care about if or if not you are any sort of mess at all, but you do and that is what matters to you right now. You have a sense of standards that you want to maintain.

Soon enough the door opens and there stands Caecam, facing you with a slightly confused look on her face.

"hEllo, hwo is it? iF you'ee here to sell me something i Will shoot you in the face, so here's that chance to walk away"

"(] caecam. luv. i7's me. so sorry 7o drop by unannounced. but i so happened 7o be in 7he neighborhood. so i 7hough7 7ha7 i would s7op by [)"

Caecam let out a small gasp, as a wide grin stretches out across her face. "wEll, well, well. wEll. aLagawa, i Thought it sounded like you, what are you doing in these parts. hAve you finally decided to take me jup on my offer"

"(] which one are you referring 7o [)"

Caecam's grin grows even more large, face splitting so. "tHw one for when you're tired of being nice, after all. dOn't you want to go ape shit"

"(] oh yes. 7ha7 one. well i am sorry 7o say 7ha7 i do no7 have 7he urge 7o. as you and 7albo7 have phrased i7 in 7he pas7. say fuck i7 and go absolu7ely feral like 7he 7wo of you have [)" You let out a small laugh, "(] you 7wo need someone 7o help keep you grounded af7er all [)"

Caecam let's out a cackle as she embraces you in a big hug. "iT is so nice to hear you., it has been such a ong time. bUt seriously how did you get here, the who the fuck knows"

"(] well. i wen7 7hrough my 7he second ga7e above my hive. expec7ing i7 7o 7ake me somewhere in my area. bu7 ins7ead i7 ended up 7aking me here [)"

"iNteresting, think if we go though my second gate we'll end up at like tAlbot's or back at your place"

"(] 7ha7 is a very good ques7ion. do you wan7 7o 7es7 i7 ou7 now or perhaps la7er [)"

"hMm, later. iT isn't like tAlbot is oing anywhere, besides when was the last tiem it was just the two of us hansing out"

"(] longer 7han i can remember [)"


End file.
